How do writers use repetition to create meanings in their texts? (42 marks)

How do writers use repetition to create meanings in their texts?In your answer, refer to the work of the three writers you have studied.

(42 marks)

Within the following three texts I have studied The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Road by Cormac McCarthy and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, they use repetition to create different meanings both reflecting the atmosphere contextually and metaphorically.

In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald repeatedly distinguishes between the two places “West Egg” and “East Egg” throughout his novel which creates a separation both in the atmosphere of the two settings and the characters that belong in these societies.  Contextually, Fitzgerald set his novel in New York City and put it at the centre of American business to colonise the idea of the American Dream. However his main purpose focused towards changing the background of where he was already living from 1922 to 1924 in Long Island and the names of the two places of Great Neck and Manhasset Neck.  Using these two locations, Manhasset neck was full of the fashionable and on the surface, respectfully wealthy people (East Egg) and Great Neck was home to those who had acquired their fortunes within their own businesses or trades and were successful through their own adventure (West Egg). This cultural divide is a constant underlying thought that not only creates an impressionable backdrop of the urban America story but also how we should expect certain characters to behave when analysing their background and social class.

 Using Nick as his narrator, Nick begins the novel by explaining why he chose to move to West Egg, stating that he felt that, “life was beginning all over again” which echoes the idea to the reference of the explorers such as Christopher Columbus who discovered America and was the only one who found the way although others had tried.  We are told that both West Egg and East Egg look identical and it is revealed that as Nick is an observer from “both within and out” the reader will be taken into both communities.  Later on within the novel, when Nick meets characters from East Egg, they contrast deeply to Mr Gatsby from West Egg, who (although an unreliable narrator) Nick particularly warms to more than any other character. Tom and Daisy’s mannerisms repeatedly remind the reader of their position of obtaining their wealth and status through family name. Daisy talks to her friend Jordan in a complacent way, both making only a polite effort to entertain or be entertained; they waste away the day lying down idly, “the only completely stationary object in the room was an enormous couch on which two young woman 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…Tom Buchanan shut the rear windows and the caught wind died about the room, and the curtains and the rugs and the two young women ballooned slowly to the floor.” Also, only Daisy makes “an attempt to rise” as Jordan complains, “I’m stiff…I’ve been lying on that sofa for as long as I can remember”.  Nick remarks on this contrast to Midwest and how people were “continually disappointed” or spent the whole evening dreading the moment it would come to an end.  Finally, at the end of the novel, Fitzgerald draws in a piece of imagery which describes West Egg, the place of opportunity. Nick thinks, “And as the moon rose higher the inessential houses began to melt away until gradually I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors’ eyes — a fresh, green breast of the new world”. This reference to when the Dutch sailors first arrived fuses the dreams of the explorers with Gatsby’s dream of Daisy on the dock and how although the West promised the world to everyone, the American Dream was unattainable to people such as Gatsby and would inevitably lead to his own destruction.  

Cormac McCarthy in The Road uses repetition as a technique to invoke his interpretation of a post-apocalyptic world.  To convey a bleak, lifeless world in which his characters of the Man and the Boy struggle to survive in, he repeats the word, “back” which is the most frequent word, may infer that they always strive to be able to refer back to the past and the “reality” that they are familiar with.  However, “down”, the second most frequent word, could link to the idea of a journey into hell of which they plunge into without choice.  Water is also mentioned which is a significant symbolisation of something from their previous lives that was once clean and now, contaminated and difficult to gain.  It is also, interestingly, something that our society takes for granted as a basic necessity which ironically is not often within their grasp.  The word “blanket” is often said, an object that is also taken for granted within society, and personally, I feel that it conveys the lack of stability and comfort that the boy has. He is only able to cling onto blankets for a glimpse of warmth in a world that has been destroyed. The idea of items with low importance being used, such as the trolley and the can of coke is a theme that is constantly referred to which connotes the idea that they have lost everything and they must cling on these things in order to keep clinging onto this past world. For example, we see that when the thief steals their belongings they value the things that they have left more almost as much as they value each other, “They took everything. Come on. The boy looked up. The boy was beginning to cry”.   

 McCarthy also repeatedly refers to the relationship between the man and the boy and portrays a deeper meaning that although their fragile world is crumbling around them, they manage to strive through this and stay strong. The word “okay” is frequently repeated between the father and the son, “Okay? Okay” which although on the surface displays a lack of emotion and communication it pragmatically displays a meaning to their hidden emotional connection.  Both characters are registered to the fact that words have become meaningless; there is nothing that either could say to one another that would provide comfort or make their situation any different.  They both only appreciate each other, nothing else around them and these words become words of reassurance.  They are all each other have and there is a clear attachment between them, although hidden, as words do not have to be said, for the father and son to still have a bond between them of trust and hope. This deeper meaning is something that never fades for the two characters and through these repeated words; it pushes the boundaries of love and commitment in a dying world.  

Samuel Taylor Coleridge conveys the supernatural theme repeatedly throughout his poem, The Rime of The Ancient Mariner to accentuate the difference between the supernatural and reality. For example, within the first part of this lyrical ballad, Coleridge uses the Ancient Mariner and The Wedding Guest, “He holds him with his glittering eye- The wedding – guest stood still, And listens like a three-years child: The Mariner hath his will”. The word “glittering” creates a sense of ambiguity from this omniscient third person narrative which contrasts to the natural world that society lives in and draws the reader towards the words of the Mariner as he is conveyed as someone deeply important.  Other examples throughout the poem relate to the supernatural behaviour of nature and the atmosphere upon the Mariners travels, “And some in dreams assured were Of the spirit that plagued us so; Nine fathom deep he had followed us from the land of mist and snow”. This refers to the water around them filling with colours and a “spirit” haunting their ship through a land of “mist and snow” which, by referring to meteorology, involves a sense of mystery for the reader and we see the impact upon the Wedding Guest, “I fear the Ancient Mariner!”

When the Mariner and his shipmates meet the skeleton boat that is holding life-in-death and death it could entail evidence contextually of Coleridge’s wild imagination which is impacted by the Greek and Roman myths that he was particularly interested in. The description of this moment, “ Alas! (Thought I, and my heart beat loud) How fast she nears and nears Are those her sails that glance in the sun, like restless gossamers?...Are those her ribs through which the sun did peer, as through a grate? And is that woman all he crew? Is that a Death? And are there two? They appear to carry the penance that the Mariner must serve for his disrespect to nature and immoral actions which draw us towards the overall moral of the story that Coleridge intended to convey.  By using the Mariner as a narrative perspective who has learnt from experience to love Gods creations, it could reflect on the feelings that Coleridge felt that society lacked this emotive perspective towards Earth. His constant reference to the supernatural, provoked the character of the Wedding Guest to become relatable to us which further makes the reader question and reflect on their attitude towards nature and change their ways, as the Wedding Guest does at the end, “He went like one that hath been stunned, and is of sense forlorn; a sadder and wiser man; he rose the morrow morn.”