Examples Of Euphemism In The Great Gatsby

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The meeting with Mr Wolfsheim shows the violence and corruption in this novel. Meyer wears cuff buttons made from human teeth, creating a fierce effect, showing that the man was unhuman. He is also mocked for appearance and his accent, particularly focusing on the words ’Oggsford’ and ‘gonnegtion’. These two words capture the deception (as Gatsby’s states to an Oxford education is taken apart in the novel) and euphemism (making the criminal underworld acceptable) needed to uphold the myth of America as the ‘land of dreams’. As well as this situation represents Gatsby’s criminality, Wolfsheim is an important part of Gatsby’s past, illustrating how extreme Gatsby’s poverty was when he returned from the war. The violence is shown through the wording and diction that Wolfsheim uses such as “electrocuted”. The film captures Meyer Wolfsheim in mostly medium close ups so you can see the details of everything he is wearing emphasizing the symbolism of all of it. The plaza hotel party room was captured using a very zoomed out view showing all the different kinds of people at the party, and all the overflow …show more content…

An ex-football player, he uses his immense physical strength to intimidate those around him. When Myrtle taunts him with his wife's name, he strikes her across the face. The other source of violence in the novel besides Tom are cars. A new commodity at the time that The Great Gatsby was published, Fitzgerald uses cars to symbolize the dangers of modernity and the dangers of wealth. The climax of the novel, the accident that kills Myrtle, is foreshadowed by the conversation between Nick and Jordan about how bad driving can cause explosive violence. The end of the novel, of course, consists of violence against Gatsby. The choice of handgun as a weapon suggests Gatsby's shady past, but it is symbolic that it is his love affair, not his business life, that kills Gatsby in the