Definition: a deliberate exaggeration or overstatement, often used for comic effect.
Original Quote: “His house had never seemed so enormous to me as it did that night when we hunted through the great rooms for cigarettes. We pushed aside curtains that were like pavilions, and felt over innumerable feet of dark wall for electric light switches — once I tumbled with a sort of splash upon the keys of a ghostly piano.”Chapter 8 page 147
Explanation: In the book The Great Gatsby, This particular quote is an example of a Hyperbole because they are talking about how they “hunted” for their cigarettes for which they were moving the curtains aside. This relates to the definition because they over exaggerate how diligently they are looking. They do this because they want to show the reader that they are thoroughly searching to find the cigarettes and using heaps of effort to do so. Another hyperbole is in the sentence also where they said he “Splashed” upon the keys. They don’t actually mean that he splashed in like a pool with the piano keys because that would make no sense. What Fitzgerald actually means is that the character just accidently hit the piano keys while trying to find his cigarettes. This is another example of a hyperbole because they actually over exaggerate the way he hit the keys to make it seem like he hit it harder.
Element Number 2:Allusion
Definition: References to a well know person, place, event, literary work, or work of art. Writers often make allusions to stories from the bible, to Greek and roman myths, to plays by Shakespeare, to political and historical events, and to other materials which they can expect their readers to be familiar.
Original Quote: “Meyer Wolfsheim? No, he’s a gambler.” Gatsby h…
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…and the groan of a picture on the wall “chapter 1 page 8
Explanation: The Great Gatsby has many literary elements and it includes personification. In this quote, the curtains according to the book are “whipping and snapping”. In reality, curtains cannot whip or snap because they are not alive and therefore do not have human characteristics. The use of personification is to cause these sorts of characteristics to be given to objects which are not human and this is exactly what is happening here. Fitzgerald does this to give us a sense on how to curtains were moving in a way for us to visualize them. Another use of personification is also where it says the “groan of a picture” because only living things can groan and in real life, a picture doesn’t groan so therefore this is a use of personification because such human qualities were given to a non human thing.
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