The Great Gatsby: Figurative Language

I would like to take a brief respite from analyzing The Great Gatsby's plot to address F. Scott Fitzgerald's awesome use of figurative language.  On every page there is some representation of beautiful imagery, similes, metaphors, personification, pun.. the list goes on.  I admittedly found a lot of the beginning of the book a little boring, but it really was interesting to look for these unique devices on each page.  I was also impressed with the creativity of each literary tool.  Often, similes and metaphors use common or redundant comparisons or the language is just very simple.  Somehow, Fitzgerald contracts similes, metaphors, and imagery that allowed me to see exactly what he was attempting to illustrate.  I'll go ahead and sound cheesy in saying that it is truly art.

A few of my favorite examples:

Personification- "Her grey sun-strained eyes looked back at me with polite reciprocal curiosity out of a wan, charming, discontented face" (Fitzgerald, 11)

Imagery- "...with the city rising up across the river in white heaps and sugar lumps all built with a wish out of non-olfactory money" (Fitzgerald, 68).

Oxymoron- "...began to eat with ferocious delicacy" (Fitzgerald, 71)

Metaphor- "At his lips' touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete" (Fitzgerald, 111)

All of this added to impeccable diction including words I've never seen before like somnambulatory and gonnegtion just make for excellent reading and a great piece of work.