When describing the buildings within the Valley of Ashes Fitzgerald mainly focusses on how the buildings are ‘unprosperous and bare’; the adjectives utilised depict images of abandonment and placidity, this is a metaphor for the peoples’ hope. It should be noted that there was a gross disparity between the upper and lower classes and this certainly exemplifies this, furthermore their hope is dwindling slowly through this ‘Valley of Ashes’; at this point it does seem as if this is the gateway to hell and as it is a liminal place this exemplifies this. Nevertheless, it can be argued that Wilson, Tom Buchanan’s contact within the Valley of Ashes, had achieved the American dream; ‘sumptuous and romantic apartments were concealed overhead’. One …show more content…
This does depict a hell as it portrays all of the inadequacies of the American dream and draws no positives. The alternate interpretation is that he genuinely views this Valley of Ashes as something that is akin to that of a breath of fresh air. The reader knows that Nick Carraway feels outcast and does not belong to any group of people. Therefore, he views the Valley of Ashes as an expression of himself; his conscience is a ‘Valley of Ashes’ and this describes why the imagery of the ‘romantic apartments’ are being ‘concealed’. From the offset Nick Carraway wants to be a writer but goes into the ‘bond business’. The whole ‘Valley of Ashes’ with the ‘unprosperous and bare’ interior evokes his empty life and the concealed apartments are representing the spark that has been locked away because of this need and want to chase the American dream opposed to your own dream. Fitzgerald has incorporated this as a social commentary on the American dream and through the depiction of the Valley of Ashes has affirmed that the American dream was a lie; it will drain a person of all their
...ent efforts, or men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air” (23). Here, The Valley of Ashes is regarded as complete destitution and hopelessness. The people known as the lower class do not wish to live in the valley of ashes. This is why people, like Myrtle try to do anything to get away from it but instead it becomes unachievable for them. When Myrtle tried to escape from the ashes by trying to be with a rich man like Tom, she dies. This embellishes how The American dream is unattainable. When Tom goes and sees George, you can see how the higher classes look down on the lower classes because of their different social positions. The higher-class people such as, Tom, Daisy, and Jordan represent the unstructured bodies of ashes within the valley. They are inconsiderate and conceited people arising from the dead ashes, changing the American Dream.
“This is a valley of ashes—a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys”(Fitzgerald 2). Tom and Nick a driving through a place between West Egg and New York, which is an industrial zone where the lower class lives. Here alone we can see how the poor class lives their daily lives in filth, but the rich live in shiny clean houses.
In this quote, the Valley of Ashes is portrayed as a “desolate area of land” where the glory of West Egg and New York are separated by a valley characterized as “grotesque,” dim, and “crumbling.” Fitzgerald includes this setting to describe important characters, such as Myrtle Wilson, who have an extreme influence on others because they are considered impoverished and trashy with no class. The Valley of Ashes symbolizes despair and poor lifestyles, which is why Myrtle is able to be used by Tom, who, in disdain, no longer shows feelings for his wife. The road is also personified to represent those who reside in the West Egg, who are snobby and want nothing to do with the poor.
Through his vivid depiction of the valley of the ashes in the acclaimed novel The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald unveils the truth about 1920s America: economic prosperity did not guarantee happiness and resulted in depreciating conditions for those that were not able to connive their way to the top.
Through these quotes, Fitzgerald believes the American dream is unattainable in the Great Gatsby because some people in the novel had advantages unlike others. A major instance of said inequality would be applied to the citizens who are living in the Valley of Ashes; representing the forgotten poor underclass with lost hopes and dreams who have failed to live up to the American dream or even got a chance to start. Therefore, the Valley of Ashes is a blatant symbol of just how “dead” Fitzgerald really believes the American dream to be, and how he wants the readers to interpret it. Fitzgerald wrote “.ashes take the form of..men who move dimly and are already crumbling through powdery air..immediately the ash-gray men swarm up with leaden spades.”. Tell’em
There is Myrtle Wilson’s gaudy, flashy hotel paradise in which she can pretend that she is glamorous, elite, wanted and loved. She clings fiercely enough to this ragged dream to brave the righteous anger of Tom Buchanan by voicing her jealous terror that he will return to his wife. There is a desperation to her full, spirited style of living, she wants so much to escape the grey, dead land of the Valley of Ashes that she colours her life with any brightness she can find, be it broken glass or diamonds. Nick describes land she finds herself in as a wasteland, a desert, saying "this is the Valley of Ashes -- a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens, where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air" (page 29).
He reveals how separated the American culture is as a whole. F Scott Fitzgerald uses figurative language to shape the portrayal of the setting by contrasting light vs. dark, comparing the Valley of ashes to the East Egg. For instance, Fitzgerald quotes, “where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills”, utilizing a simile to exaggerate and emphasize that the ashes are taking the form of hills, which essentially is all trash. The ashes are a symbol of the hopeless and dead, the social corrosion that is yielded from the unrestricted pursuit of wealth, as the upper class nourish themselves with regard simply to self pleasure. Fitzgerald states, “where ashes take the form of houses and chimneys”, a form of imagery that gives the audience a visual aid to emphasize how prevalent the ashes are. These claims prove that the valley of ashes is a darken city bewitched with poverty and illness. With the pile of ashes growing larger, the classes of society further disjoin, removing their opportunity to escape and acquire their American Dream. By Fitzgerald using figurative language it makes the storyline come alive in the readers mind. He symbolizes certain emotions within the reader to embody and visualize the contrast between the Valley of Ashes and the East Egg as if we were there with them. Scott Fitzgerald also uses figurative language to
...26). Not only was the Valley of Ashes described as gray, but its people were as well. Fitzgerald fashioned George Wilson as a spiritless and demoralized lower-class American worker. He highlighted this lack of animation and vitality by describing Wilson as covered with the same stiflingly gray dust that carpeted the rest of the Valley. Fitzgerald used gray in this case to convey a feeling of lifelessness to the reader and deepen the symbolism of the Valley of Ashes. In contrast to his symbolic use of bright colors elsewhere in The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald chose to illustrate with his words the Valley of Ashes and the people who lived there with the color gray, symbolizing the bleakness of the area and the depressing lack of hope that the people living there displayed.
The addictive consumption of being rich or trying to be rich is what makes this book reflect what the 1920s was really all about. From the Valley of Ashes all the way to the elite East egg, Fitzgerald gives a realistic insight of how he perceived the world to be at the time.“The materialism of the East creates the tragedy of destruction, dishonesty, and fear. No values exist in such an environment” (Telgen 71). Fitzgerald created all these locations to show just how different every social class was. The West Eggers are distasteful always buying flashy things to show off while the East Eggers are sophisticated and classy. The Valley of ashes is where the poorest people in the book live, Fitzgerald’s description makes it this gray town where ash is everywhere and the men there are dirty and repulsive. Lasty, the most corrupted place in the book where the prostitutes linger around and mobsters have control over everything, New york city. Understanding the huge social division in this book is important because of the significance of actual occurrences in history, since the 1920s America has come a long
By exploring the physical site of the valley, followed by the inhabitants of the valley – George and Myrtle, George representing the working class and Myrtle the exception, extending this to the references of the valley to Gatsby’s humble origins, the Valley of the Ashes represents the low social mobility and the failure of the American Dream.
F. Scott Fitzgerald, author of The Great Gatsby, paints vivid picture of the lives of upper and lower classes together and their interactions during the Roaring 20’s. Fitzgerald does this by showing the readers the true nature and purpose behind the upper class and the manipulation they use against anyone lower than them. An example of this manipulation would be Tom Buchanan, a wealthy man married to Daisy Buchanan, lying George Wilson, a lowly poor individual running a mechanics shop, about selling a car, just to see the man’s wife. This poor man, Wilson, lives in “The Valley of Ashes”, an almost desolate area on the way to New York from West and East Egg. This valley is a representation of the manipulation and reckless behavior of the upper class. Through The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald paints a picture of the 1920’s by portraying the upper class as immoral and careless through their actions, and their opinions.
“The ‘Valley of Ashes’.symbolizes the human situation in an age of chaos. It is ‘a certain desolate area of land’ in which ‘ash-grey men’ swarm dimly, stirring up ‘an impenetrable cloud, which screens their obscure operations from your sight.’” (Dyson 113). Nick thinks of the place as “a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills into grotesque gardens” (Fitzgerald 23). And that is exactly what it is, since it’s a barren land of human waste.
The Valley of Ash, the least described region of the book, is an impoverished region connecting the prosperous, the wealthy New York City and the wealthier Long Island. The neighborhood is a “dismal scene” (23), which Nick Caraway is forced to view every time he rides the train into the city. The name valley of ash is an informal name deriving from the sheer quantity of ash, littering the city. Ashes cover and define everything in the city: the “ridges and hills and grotesque gardens”, the “houses and chimneys”, and the “men”. Similarly, the residents of the valley are hardly characterized by Caraway, because he cannot understand them. The smoke “obscures” and “obfuscates” the actions of these men both literally and figurative: a rich man like Caraway cannot understand the pure and intolerable poverty. The residents of the valley are plain and not very interesting. Most predominately featured ...
Fitzgerald using the valley of ashes, illustrates an environment where love has lost its place, which destroys hope for a family; the eyes of T.J. Eckleburg, clearly intended to represent those of god, emphasizes that this lack of love and filial piety in a sin against themselves as well as society and God
Scott Fitzgerald was a writer who desired his readers to be able to hear, feel, and see his work. He made it his goal to be able to make readers think and keep asking questions using imagery and symbolism. The Great Gatsby was not just about the changes that occurred during the Jazz Age, but it was also about America’s corrupted society which was full of betrayal and money-hungry citizens. It was the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg that overlooked all the corruption that occurred throughout the Valley of Ashes. It was the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg that serves as a symbol of higher power who witnesses everything from betrayal to chaos in Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby.