Passage Analysis

“He must have looked up at an unfamiliar sky through frightening leaves and shivered as he found what a grotesque thing a rose is and how raw the sunlight was upon the scarcely created grass. A new world, material without being real, where poor ghosts, breathing dreams like air, drifted fortuitously about…” (Fitzgerald Pg.169)

In this passage, Gatsby is describing the weather moments before his death. The weather the day before the day he dies is sunny and beautiful. It seems like Gatsby can sense that he is going to die. It is his last premonition before he actually dies. It sets up his death to the reader, giving the reader a sense that something devastating is going to happen. Fitzgerald uses great literary devices like diction, personification and imagery to add a great effect to the passage. Diction like “grotesque”, “fortuitously”, “frightening” and “scarcely” all portray the image that Gatsby is trying to show the reader. He also uses personification to personify the leaves and ghosts to add to the imagery Fitzgerald wants to portray. It foreshadows what is going to happen when the page is turned, witch is his death. It sends a weary feeling to the readers, like something is out of place. It sets up his death perfectly. It also sets up the theme witch is death in these last two pages. Fitzgerald uses this passage to shift the theme from cheery to death.