In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, the topics of the East Egg versus the West Egg, the valley of ashes and the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg, and the green light at the end of the dock are key symbols that play important roles throughout the novel. The role the East Egg versus the West Egg plays is significant throughout the entirety of the novel. The East Egg, where Tom and Daisy Buchanan live, represents established wealth and inheritance. Those living on the East Egg have always been rich and are recognizable from their conceited, materialistic attitudes. The exceedingly superficial, corrupt nature of the East Egg society is truly captured in the novel as Nick describes, “they were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made” (179). The rich East Egg citizens, while they have an abundance of money, lack in decency, manners, and social refinement. While “the white palaces of fashionable East Egg” (5) embody established family wealth, the West Egg, “the less fashionable of the two” (5), represents the idea of new wealth. Fitzgerald uses the West Egg as a symbol for the Eckleburg are actually only an advertisement for an eye doctor on a billboard, they play a much more significant, symbolic role in the story. The eyes, looking out over the valley of ashes, represent the decrease of spiritual beliefs and morals in society. George Wilson, “looking at the eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg” (159), explains that God sees everything, therefore implying that he believes the eyes of the optometrist are God. He believes that these eyes have seen everything Tom and Myrtle have done and has seen the poverty in the valley of ashes, yet do nothing. In this, Wilson is inferring that God sees everything that is happening, yet stands back and does not
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s American classic, The Great Gatsby, tells a story of how love and greed lead to death. The narrator of the novel, Nick Carraway, tells of his unusual summer after meeting the main character, Jay Gatsby. Gatsby’s intense love makes him attempt anything to win the girl of his dreams, Daisy Buchanan. All the love in the world, however, cannot spare Gatsby from his unfortunate yet inevitable death. In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald utilizes the contrasting locations of East Egg and West Egg to represent opposing forces vital to the novel.
Chapter 1: Chapter one introduces the reader to the narrator Nick Halloway and most of the other other characters of the story. Including his cousin daisy, her husband tom and their friend jordan - the golfer. Nick comes from a wealthy family; however, doesn’t believe in inheriting their wealth. Instead he wishes to earn his own wealth by selling bonds in the stock market. Chapter one also talks about the separation of the rich. Where the east egg represents the inherently rich whereas west egg represents the newly rich. The people in the east also seem to lack social connections and aristocratic pedigree. Whereas the people in west egg possess all those qualities usually lacked by people in the east.With nick living
Our story, The Great Gatsby, starts out when Nick, a stock trader, moves to West Egg. West Egg is a part of Long Island where the "new" rich people live. "New" rich is a term used to describe people who have recently acquired their wealth, and have no connections in East Egg, where the people who have established their wealth live. Gatsby befriends Nick for a good reason, to meet his long lost love, Daisy, Nick’s cousin and resident of East Egg. Unfortunately for Gatsby, Daisy is married to Tom, a boisterous man who has taken in a mistress and everyone in the novel knows about it.
The West Egg houses are more recently built and are elaborately decorated, where as the houses in East Egg are still as big but very conservative in architecture. The two neighborhoods represent the division of the upper class at this time in America. During the 1920's, the conservative "old rich" despised the "new rich". A good example of an "old rich" family would be the Rockefellers, where as a "new rich" family would be the Kennedys. The East Egg represents the conservative money of the "old rich".
Many forms of literature portray conflicting or contrasting areas in which each place has a significant impact on the story. These opposing forces add to the overall theme, symbolism, and meaning of the story. In the ‘Great Gatsby’, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, these areas are the ‘East Egg’ and the ‘West Egg’. To illustrate, the East Egg represents the former or classic establishment. It consists of wealthy families who have handed down money from generation to generation.
In the beginning of the novel, Nick establishes residence in one “of the two formations of land” which “extends itself due east of New York” (4). These land configurations resemble “a pair of enormous eggs” and are consequently referred to as East Egg and West Egg (4). Each society is characterized by the distinct origins of the wealth of their inhabitants. East Egg is based on familial wealth, and therefore values a prestigious family name. Despite being “fashionable” and glitzy, East Egg becomes notorious for harboring bullies as represented by Tom and Daisy Buchanan (5). Physically, Tom is “enormous” and powerful, which translates into his internal psyche (7). He is portrayed as cruel and unthinking throughout the novel, later causing murder by blaming Myrtle’s death on Gatsby, thereby compelling Wilson...
The heart of the whole notion of wealth lies in the setting of the novel, the east and west eggs of New York City. The west egg was a clustering of the "Nouveau riche" or the newly acquired rich, and the east egg was where the people who inherited their riches resided. The eggs divided the people rich in two with the poor being limited to the middle, the "valley of ashes". Even the way the narrator, Nick Carraway, describes the two communities' gives off a feeling of superiority. Nick describes the east as " the less fashionable of the two, through this is a most superficial tag to express the bizarre and not a little sinister contrast between them" (...
In the novel The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald emphasizes the demise of the American Dream. Through greed, pursuit of empty pleasures and cynicism many characters throughout the novel realize that life is not always as luxurious as it seems. Based on the East and West egg, both communities live very expensive lifestyles.
The green light at the end of the Buchanan’s dock symbolizes Gatsby’s lust for wealth and power, and also his dream of having Daisy. The interpretation that stands out the most of any is that green is the color of money, therefore Gatsby’s motivations are fueled by the wealthy status of someone on the East Egg that he would wish to have as well. However, just like his dreams, the light is very “minute and far away” (30). Gatsby throws lavish parties, lives his life in luxury, and fools himself into believing he is upper c...
Happiness symbolises a form of content, a form of satisfaction that can lead to several types of actions. In the Great Gatsby, happiness is portrayed in unusual forms with different characters, however every single character has some form of a dream in mind. Fitzgerald juxtaposes his influence of T.S. Elliot’s use of Valley of the Ashes showing poverty, decay and lost spiritualism with the rich lifestyle of West Egg as he shows the wealth, parties and liveliness of this Egg. The Egg represents the symbol of birth and life, as well as the fragility of society and mainly the fragility of dreams. Each character in the novel has their own interpretation of the ‘American Dream – the pursuit of happiness’ as they all lack happiness due to the careless nature of American society during the Jazz Age.
East Egg is home to the more prominent established wealth families. Tom's and Daisy's home is on the East Egg. Their house, a "red and white Georgian Colonial mansion overlooking the bay" with its "wine-colored rug[s]" is just as impressive as Gatsby's house but much more low-key (Fitzgerald 11)(13). East egg and Tom's home represents the established wealth and traditions. Their stable wealth, although lacking the vulgarity of new wealth, is symbolic of their empty future and now purposelessness lives together. The House also has a cold sense to it according to Nick. This sense symbolizes Tom's brutality, and as Perkins's says in his manuscript to Fitzgerald "I would know...Buchanan if I met him and would avoid him," because Tom is so cold and brute (Perkins 199).
Fitzgerald’s uses setting to describe how West Egg and East Egg represent new money and old money. West Egg represents the new money and East Egg, the old money. While they seem quite similar at first, because they are expensive places to live. West Egg is described as “the less fashionable of the two, although there is little contrast between them.” But, yet there are many differences. Such as when Nick describes his own house as "an eyesore" that is "squeezed between
green light shines from the East Egg to the West Egg luring Gatsby towards what
Setting is essential to any good novel, it envelopes the entire work and pervades every scene and line for, as Jack M. Bickham said, “when you choose setting, you had better choose it wisely and well, because the very choice defines—and circumscribes—your story’s possibilities”. F. Scott Fitzgerald created a setting in The Great Gatsby that not only is an overarching motif in the story, but implants itself in each character that hails from West Egg, East Egg, and the Valley of Ashes. West Egg, symbolizing the new, opportunistic rich, representative of the American dream, East Egg, the established, aristocratic rich, and the Valley of Ashes, the crumbling decay of society, are linked together in the “haunted” image of the East, the hollow, shallow, and brutal land that Fitzgerald uses to illustrate the hollow, shallow, and brutal people living there (176).
Social class and status is also emphasized through the barrier that exists between East Egg and West Egg which symbolises “old money” and “new money” effectively, and the corruption of morals as witnessed and expressed by the narration of Nick Carraway. Fitzgerald shows that for all the lavishness of society there is ultimately unfulfilled dreams, corruption and separation, and in the case of Gatsby a tragic end to a tragic hero of the lower class.