Syntax. All the cool kids are doin' it.

• ·         “The groups change more swiftly, swell with new arrivals, dissolve and form in the same breath; already there are wanderers, confident girls who weave here and there among the stouter and more stable, become for a sharp, joyous moment the center of a group, and then, excited with triumph, glide on through the sea-change of faces and voices and color under the constantly changing light” (41).

This continuous, run-on sentence is used by Fitzgerald to depict one of Gatsby’s parties that Nick is attending. The excess of commas and absence of conjunctions (asyndetons) blend the clauses and render the sentence, as well as the scene, to a rhythmic blur. By doing so, Fitzgerald is able to illustrate the character of Gatsby’s parties as fast-paced, stimulating, having a contrast in the types of guests, and yet seemingly insignificant.

• ·         “From West Egg came the Poles and the Mulreadys and Ceicil Roebuck and Cecil Schoen and Gulick the State senator and Newton Orchid, who controlled Films Par Excellence, and Eckhaust and Clyde Cohen and Don S. Schwartze (the son) and Arthur McCarty, all connected with the movies in one way or another. And the Catlips and the Bembergs and G. Earl Muldoon, the brother to that Muldoon who afterward strangled his wife. Da Fontano the promoter came there, and Ed Legros and James B. (“Rot-Gut”) Ferret and the De Jongs and Ernest Lilly—they came to gamble, and when Ferret wandered into the garden it meant he was cleaned out and Associated Traction would have to fluctuate profitably next day” (62).

This paragraph, which is part of five other paragraphs of similar construction used to list several of Gatsby’s random guests at his lavish parties, consists of only three sentences, all of them run-on and riddled with commas. By composing these sentences as run-on, it mirrors Gatsby’s seemingly never-ending list of guests. Also, Fitzgerald includes phrases in parenthesis in this and the other paragraphs to give extra information about some of the guests such as nicknames or affiliations to other guests showing the extensive network of high-class individuals that Gatsby chooses to invite to his parties and surround himself with.