How Diction Creates Tone

The narrator, Nick Carraway, maintains a rather superior tone throughout the novel by his use of witty and profound, formal language. Carraway sets the terrain for the valley of ashes by describing it as a place where “occasionally a line of grey cars crawls along an invisible track, gives out a ghastly creak, and comes to rest, and immediately the ash-gray men swarm up with leaden spades and stir up an impenetrable cloud, which screens their obscure operations from your sight” (23). Carraway’s use of abstract diction such as “invisible”, “impenetrable”, and “obscure” evidently give off his sense of predominant language in order to communicate the current conditions of the neglected valley. The verbs such as “crawls”, “swarm”, “stir”, and “screens” keep the reader aware in a more sophisticated manner. This formal word choice arranges the new setting, a valley of ashes, to stand out in a unique way. During a ride with Gatsby, nick builds an internal grudge in going with him for Nick sardonically states, “We hadn’t reached West Egg Village before Gatsby began leaving his elegant sentences unfinished and slapping himself indecisively on the knee of his caramel-colored suit” (64). Clarifying Gatsby’s ridiculous mien in society due to his refined lifestyle, Carraway describes Gatsby’s speech as “elegant” and “unfinished”. This creates an ironic common base between Gatsby and the narrator himself because Carraway also tends to ramble on in elaborate means. “Slapping” and “indecisively” are a direct and specific approach to Gatsby’s posture. Carraway develops an obvious peek to his vague language.