Use Of Imagery In The Great Gatsby And The Road

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Imagery is rather not what is on the paper but rather what is between it, there is so much more than what meets the eye in imagery. This is seen in both books, The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald and The Road by Cormac McCarthy. The texts share similar symbols and it is represented through the use of beautiful imagery. Both novels share similar light and landscape imagery to be symbolic of the main themes, hope and death respectively. The Valley of Ashes is a place between the West Egg and Manhattan. This is no typical road, as Scott Fitzgerald uses the desolate area as landscape imagery to symbolize the theme of death in The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald uses a passage filled with landscape imagery to paint the theme of death in the reader …show more content…

The author describes the man to be "slow and half opaque"(10) as if his life was fading away before him. This is even more evident as he starts to cough repeatedly in the passage. The imagery used to describe him and the landscape clearly shows the theme of death and how the man is almost near it. Fitzgerald uses ashes as an imagery of death and this is shown by McCarthy as well, he eventually "just knelt in the ashes"(10). The man is essentially kneeling down to death. The world he lives in has been burned down and all that remains is death, the ashes of everything. When he is kneeling down in the ashes it is almost as if he is surrendering to death. This is seen in The Great Gatsby as Fitzgerald uses the valley of ashes, primarily the word “ashes”, to explain the significance of the theme death and how the landscape of this grey and ashy area is the future decay of an era – the American dream. In this novel however, the death is not of an era but rather of humanity. The man also then looks up to ask God "Are you there…will I see you at last?"(10). He then continues to criticize God for his absence in his life and this world. Cormac paints an image of the man begging and pleading to God and also being frustrated for the life he is currently in and he is blaming …show more content…

This shows that he was focused and striving for the hope. "...as far as I was from him, I could have sworn he was trembling" (10) . Fitzgerald is trying to display Gatsby 's desperation for an urgent and intense desire for the hope, which we later understand is Daisy. Eventually, the passage gets to the green light, which is the fundamental symbol used for hope. The light being green can be looked as Gatsby 's motivation, just like a traffic light the green is to achieve his hope. Although, it being at the end of the dock demonstrates that it feels so close, yet so

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