学士学位论文--《了不起的盖茨比》中的修辞现象.doc

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学士学位论文（设计）
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Rhetorical Devices in The Great Gatsby

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学士学位论文（设计）诚信承诺书
中文题目：《了不起的盖茨比》中的修辞现象
外文题目：Rhetorical Devices in The Great Gatsby
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我承诺在学士学位论文（设计）活动中遵守学校有关规定，恪守学术规范，本人学士学位论文（设计）内容除特别注明和引用外，均为本人观点，不存在剽窃、抄袭他人学术成果，伪造、篡改实验数据的情况。如有违规行为，我愿承担一切责任，接受学校的处理。
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我承诺在指导学生学士学位论文（设计）活动中遵守学校有关规定，恪守学术道德规范，经过本人核查，该生学士学位论文（设计）内容除特别注明和引用外，均为该生本人观点，不存在剽窃、抄袭他人学术成果，伪造、篡改实验数据的现象。

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Contents
1. Introduction 1
2. Cultural Backgrounds 1
2.1 The Life Experience of Fitzgerald 1
2.2 Introduction of the Great Gatsby 2
2.3 American Dream and its Disillusionment 2
3. Rhetorical Devices in The Great Gatsby 3
3.1 Simile 3
3.2 Metaphor 4
3.3 Contrast 6
3.4 Irony 8
3.5 Hyperbole 9
3.6 Euphemism 10
3.7 Understatement 11
3.8 Pun 11
4. The rhetorical function in The Great Gatsby 12
4.1 Aesthetic effects 12
4.2 Emotional effects 13
4.3 Behavioral effects 13
Conclusion
Bibliography 14

1. 目录序号按正文修改
2. 内容补充
3. 翻译部分语法校对修改
4. 格式按文理要求修改

湖北师范学院文理学院外语系学士学位论文（设计）
Rhetorical Devices in The Great Gatsby

CHEN Ying (Tutor: LI Guifang)
(Department of Foreign Languages, College of Arts and Science, Hubei Normal University, Huangshi, China, 435002)

Abstract: It will make us more pleasant and easier to accept if we use some rhetoric to express the same sentences, so it is often said that rhetoric is the persuasive speech art.It is often said that rhetoric is the persuasive speech art because
it makes people feel more pleasant and easier to accept if we use some rhetoric to express the same sentences.
This paper thesis
attempts to explore the rhetorical devices in The Great Gatsby and its rhetorical effects on expressing the theme of this novel by considering rhetoric in the novel to be the focus of attention, and the American Dream to be the clue to be the basis. What’s more, it tried to know more about the rhetoric and reveal rhetorical effect, aiming at flexibility in the use of the rhetoric.
Key words: rhetoric, Devices，effect, useRhetorical devices，effects，The Great Gatsby

《了不起的盖茨比》中的修辞现象

摘要：同样的言语人们用些修辞手法修辞一下往往使人身心愉悦，使得说话者要表达的意思更容易被接受，因此修辞学经常被说成具有劝说性演讲艺术。本文将以《了不起的盖茨比》中的修辞手法为切入口，以文中的“美国梦”作为依据，探讨文中的修辞现象及修辞手法对文中主题的表达效果，进一步认识修辞手法及它们的作用，以达到能灵活运用这些修辞手法的效果。
关键词：修辞手法；现象；作用；运用按英文关键词修改

中图分类号:H315

Rhetorical Devices in The Great Gatsby
1. Introduction
What is the theme of The Great Gatsby?简要介绍作者和书的主要内容
The majority of scholars have discussed it, but littleFew
of them discussed it through discuss介词后面接动词？
the rhetorical devices in the novel. We will discuss The Great Gatsby through rhetorical devices in it. We know that what rhetorical perused is good verbal expressive effect. People use speaking, writing and communication to express their feeling and ideas. They do this to complete certain speech acts. It is not purely to be pleased to see or the simply the pursuit of beauty enjoy. The general good rhetorical effect refers to accurate, concise, clear, vivid and moving speaking and it makes people ethat makes it
asy to accept. （胡习之，2010，2） All we talked above are positive effect of rhetoric. 删
This paper Thesis
will talk about the positive effect of rhetoric，mainly on how Fitzgerald uses the rhetoric to depict the characters of people and analyze their life experience and their essence. It will also explain the tragedy of Gatsby, the tragedy of the whole United States during 1920th and what causes the tragedy.
2. Cultural Backgrounds删

2.11.1
The Life Experience of Fitzgerald and the Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald is one of the popular novelists among the 1920’s to 1930’s in the United States of America. He is the typical novelist and detached observer, the leading participant who is struggle all his life for money at that period. He becomes rich through success in literary creation, but his completion is not popular in the depression period, he died before American participation in the World War Ⅱ. His works are the paradigm writings of the Jazz Age. (Malcolm Cowley and Robert Cowley,1990:12). He is widely regarded as one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. He is also a number of the “Lost Generation” of the 1920th. His most famous novel is The Great Gatsby. He had ever express his love to two girl, one abandon him and married rich man, another married him because he become a rich man
through his writing, he lived with his wife in a very luxury life, the money he earned is not enough for their money spend on party and traveling. He lives happily with his wife but his wife got lunacy in latter years, he becomes a man who is boozy as his not success in writing Tender is the Night at that period and his wife got lunacy, and he died in 1940 for his heart failure. We know that he is the prototype of Gatsby from his similar life to Gatsby.
His writing style is closely related to its theme. His writing style is from the carefully observed in life, carefully selected and the accumulation of satirical details. He reproduced the language and people’s way of thinking of that era accurately. In the section of the novel, he converts from one lively scene of description to the next, let the reader to develop their understanding and imagination of the tedious process. (跃世，1985：7)
2.2 the Introduction of the Great Gatsby删

The Great Gatsby is the most famous novel of F. Scott Fitzgerald，it has ever been played as film in 1929, 1949, 1974, and 2000. It will be played in 2013. The story took place in 1922. During 1920th, the United States becomes a prosper country after World War Ⅰ. This book is written in this period and it received a lot of critical acclaim, it also widely regarded as a “Great American Novel”, it expresses the essence of the era. Unlike his previous works, he changed his expressing his luxury life in the novel before and expresses the essence of that era in this novel. There are many rhetorical devices used to portray the essence of that era and the disillusion of American Dream in the novel.
2.3 American Dream and its Disillusionment 1.2

The American Dream is that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position." （James Truslow Adams，1931：214-215）. We know from it that all men are created equal. The American Dream means that everyone could grow up, receive a good education and career without artificial barriers. And we shouldn’t regard the class, caste, religion, race and ethnicity. In the novel, Gatsby’s American Dream is the seek for money and love of Daisy, As Daisy left him because he is poor, she married a rich and powerful man Tom. He thinks that money can help him to get what he wants so he bought a villa in the west egg and spent large money for the party to attract Daisy’s attention. In Tom’s mind, Daisy is his goodness, she is rich and pure. In order to get Daisy, he quits his belief and becomes a bootlegger. Gatsby is a good man that Nick has ever met, he loves Daisy so much and he can do all for her, even the life. But Daisy married with Tom because Gatsby’s poring even though she had hesitated. Daisy thinks money and position are the most important in her life, she betrayed Gatsby two times. But Gatsby didn’t realize this. He lost his life under the plot between Daisy and Tom. This is the disillusionment of his American Dream.
2. Rhetorical Devices in The Great Gatsby
2.1 Simile
Simile refers to a figure of speech that directly compares two things though some connectives, usually “like,” “as,” “than,” or a verb such as “resembles.” A simile differs from a metaphor in that the latter compares two unlike things by saying that one thing is the other thing.（X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia，2007：594）
There are some similes used in the novel as follows：
1)序号去掉 下同
“In his blue garden men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the star.”（F. Scott Fitzgerald，1925：43）, the people in attendance are like moths, the attend Gatsby’s party because they are attracted by the bright lights and commotion, they are attracted because they yearn the richness and the commitment on Gatsby’s party. This reflects people pursue money like moths fly to the fire. They don’t respect the Gatsby and talk something bad to him, they attend the party only for money and free enjoyment.
2) In the sentence that” and of Daisy, gleaming like silver, safe and proud above the hot struggles of the poor.” （F. Scott Fitzgerald，1925：159-160）Daisy is described as “gleaming like silver, safe and proud above the hot struggles of the poor”. Silver, a most pure element, gives her an image of beauty and regality, emphasizing her status as an East Egger above the lower people. Daisy is rich and she enjoys this rich, she regards this import as well, she chooses to marry to Tom is also oriented from her thought that money beyond everything. Gatsby doesn’t realize this enough lead to his tragic death.
3) We know from the sentence “They only completely stationary object in the room was an enormous couch on which two young women were buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon. They were both in white and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house”(F. Scott Fitzgerald，1925：10). This image gives the two women a very flighty and airy feel, as if they had no substance, yet also a feel of a great energy. We can see it from Daisy’s circling around Tom and Gatsby and she looks power and money over everything. Jordan’s showing herself to be strength also reflects it. Their later action and character also show this image.
2.2 Metaphor
In Webster’s New World Dictionary, we knew that a metaphor is a figure of speech containing an implied comparison, in which a word or phrase ordinarily and primarily used of one thing is applied to another. (李鑫华，2000：18) It tells us not literal meaning but implied meaning. Let’s discuss the metaphor used in The Great Gatsby.
1. It uses things as metaphor2.2.1 things as metaphor

1)去掉 下同
Gatsby’s house: The most characteristic metaphor in The Great Gatsby is Gatsby’s house, what happened in Gatsby’s house is the best metaphor of the whole era of 1920th, as everything happens in the Gatsby mansion is also happened in America at that time. Wealth gained heavily among the period from the World WarⅠ to depression period, it was called “the Jazz Age”. But in domestic, social contradiction becomes sharp. Wrier use “the Gatsby residence” as a metaphor for contemporary American Society, it reveals the serious moral crisis people faced.
2) Gatsby’s green light: The green light appears repeatedly in the novel, the green light represents Gatsby’s ultimate aspiration: to win Daisy’s love. In the sentence “Possibly it had occurred to him that the colossal significance of that light had now vanished forever.... Now it was again a green light on a dock. His count of enchanted objects had diminished by one” (F. Scott Fitzgerald，1925：159-160). Gatsby realize his he must face that Daisy married to Tom
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and has a daughter, there are something he doesn’t about her among the five years, he can’t pass the time gap among them. Daisy is as ideal as the protagonist he creates in his mind.
3) Car: We often use the car as a means of transportation, but many people use it as a symbol of social status and personal glory, it reveals this in Great Gatsby. The upstarts-Gatsby flaunts his wealth to recover his dream of Daisy. Wilson doesn’t own his own car, he repairs the car to make a living, and he is making a dream of a car. Mrs. Wilson looks a car as a direct way to enhance her identity and change her fate. When she goes a date with his lover, she let four taxis go away and choose the new light purple car. We all knew that new car is more scenery style and purple is a rich color; Mrs. Wilson’s vanity and potential heart bore there completely.（陈法春，1997：1-2）. In a result, she runs away from her husband and this strata the Wilson’s dream of car. Car provides comfort but also risk. In the novel, the car is not only used as damaged weapon but also the tool used to test the level of morality, it even is a sense of responsibility. As a weapon, it crushed the right hand of the drunken man. It also killed the Mrs. Wilson’s life. As a tool of testing the morality, it shows the irresponsible of Daisy and Tom, it also shows Gatsby’s compromise of ideal love to take the responsibility.（陈法春，1997：2-3）
4) Eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg: These gigantic blue eyes look out at the valley of ashes behind a pair of yellow eyeglasses, George Wilson refers it to God, it is seeing everything happens before it, he saw the death of Myrtle and know Daisy run away after rushing to Myrtle, he witness the morality’s corruption of people. As in the novel “God knows what you've been doing, everything you've been doing”. (F. Scott Fitzgerald，1925：170)
2. It uses the name of people in novels as metaphor2.2.2 The names of people as metaphor

1) 去掉
The name of Daisy refers to the essence of her personality
The names used in the novel are not arbitrary, the name used in the novel implied something except the surface meaning. （王万兵，2003：2）. Daisy is a name of a flower; the white color is around the flower, while the yellow is in the middle of the flower.（卢珺 杨祎 郭徽，2008：4）. The yellow and white color of the flower suggests the money along with the emptiness. Daisy is the typical role who seeks for money, she loved Gatsby, but she married Tom and abandon Gatsby for money, after she meets Gatsby many years later, she circles round Tom
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and Gatsby because Gatsby was a rich man at that time. She can betray love and his husband for money, she was born for money, and drunk for money. It is her empty of spirit, her degenerated morality and her dark heart that lead her cooperation with her husband plot to kill Gatsby.
2) The name of Mumble refers to the essence of their personality
Mumble means inarticulate speaking; this is the pungent irony of the people who went to Gatsby without paying. They talked about something not be good for him, they enjoy everything Gatsby supplied at the same time. We can know their immortal from all this, thus the name of Mumble refers to the essence of the