The Valley of Ash is a very unique setting unlike the other settings of The Great Gatsby. The Valley of Ash shows a desolated and impoverished land haunted by unpleasant day to day mentality. You could say it is like a buffer zone between East and West egg, perhaps a representation of no man’s land. No man’s land was the land between the Allies and Axis trenches in World War I which had just ended in the narrative of the book. It’s a twilight zone caused by the raging war between the nations, or between West and East egg. Another symbol of the Valley of Ashes is the moral decay hidden by the outer beauty of the Eggs, and conveys that beneath the embellishment of West Egg and the older fashion charm of East Egg lies the same immorality as in the valley. The valley is created by industrial carelessness and is a sorrowful result of capitalism. It is the setting to the only poor characters in the novel. …show more content…
J. Eckleburg’s cynical and divine, glass covered eyes staring upon from the billboard, like the Lord Himself judging each and every soul, makes the eyes troubling to the reader. In this passage, Fitzgerald maintains their mystery, giving the eyes no certain symbolic meaning. The eyes are simply unreadable, “brood on over the solemn dumping ground.” Perhaps the most reasonable reading of the eyes in this point of time is that they represent the eyes of the Lord, staring down at the moral decay of the 1920s.
The moral decay, he observes the seven deadly sins: lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride. The lust of Myrtle's affair with Tom, the gluttony of drunk driving, the greed of the Eggs, the sloth of solving these immoralities with the Lord, the wrath of George unto to innocent Gatsby, the envy of George ”When he (George) saw us a damp gleam of hope sprang into his light blue eyes.”, and simply the most noticeable; pride. The Eggs always competing in an attempt to show superiority against each
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.
The Great Gatsby does an excellent job showing the reader the neglect for spiritual values in America, and how Americans believed there was no greater power watching over them. Throughout the 1920’s by using the famous eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg. Dr. T.J. Eckleburg was an optometrist in New York. His choice of advertising is strange but extremely symbolic to the theme. In the Valley of ashes, his eyes are painted on a billboard that looks down on everyone. These eyes are constantly watching the people slowly give up their values and beliefs. It’s obvious that the eyes on the billboard are consistently watching the people toss away their values because of how the billboard is designed. Nick describes the sign like this, “The eyes are blue and gigantic- their ...
The scenery choices for the film matched up well to what was expected from the book, but some choices contrasted greatly. The Valley of Ashes was well portrayed in the film. The Valley is “…a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens…” (Fitzgerald 27). This shows that the Valley of Ashes is not a pleasant place to be in and is looked down upon. In the film, the interpretation on the Valley is spot on. It shows a dirty, sad little town, filled with depressed people. A second scenery choice that is well depicted in the film is the Buchannan’s home. It is described to be very elegant and grand filled with beautiful furniture. Throughout the scenes in the Buchannan’s house, the “grandness” is well represented through the furniture, landscaping and exterior chosen for the house. The exterior of Gatsby’s house does not match up to its description in the book. “The one on my right was a colossal affair by any standard—it was a factual imitation of some Hotel de Ville in Normandy, with a tower on one side…” is how Gatsby’s house is described (Fitz...
The eyes of T J Eckleburg represent the loss of moral and social values in America, the hollowness of the American Dream, and the corruption of people. T.J. Eckleburg’s eyes stare down at everyone around them, including the main characters that pass by it on their trips to New York City. In this way, the symbol of the eyes reveals the corruption of the American Dream through the people that the eyes are watching. The eyes ‘watch’ as Gatsby goes to luncheon with Nick to meet Wolfshiem, the dishonest man who helped fix the World Series. The eyes too have watched Tom go into the city...
The first example of a character whose morals are destroyed is Myrtle. Myrtle's attempt to enter into the group to which the Buchanans belong is doomed to fail. She enters the affair with Tom, hoping to adopt his way of life and be accepted into his class to escape from her own. Her class is that of the middle class. Her husband, Wilson, owns a gas station, making an honest living and trying his best to succeed in a world where everything revolves around material possessions. With her involvement in Tom's class, she only becomes vulgar and corrupt like the rich. She loses all sense of morality by hurting others in her futile attempt to join the ranks of Tom's social class. In doin...
The eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg are perhaps the most important symbol in The Great Gatsby. The eyes can be taken as the eyes of God or even as us, the observers. We are observing the characters in what they do and analyzing them as an example of what is wrong or what is right. In this case, we are observing Daisy Buchanan and Jay Gatsby. We are observing their conducts and deciphering whether their actions are wrong or right.
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).
Imagine everyday waking up going to the same old boring job living a meaningless life because it is impossible to achieve the same life as the those living in the upper class. Gray suffocates the surroundings, except for a dingy billboard with blue eyes and yellow spectacles. This is a reality for Myrtle and George Wilson living in the Valley of Ashes because they are the lower class in The Great Gatsby. In this novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, he conveys the importance of the colors: gray, blue and yellow in relating the setting and social class in the Valley of Ashes. The description of the Valley of Ashes gray is constantly repeated,“Occasionally a line of gray cars crawls along an invisible track, gives out a ghastly creak, and comes to rest, and immediately the ash-gray men swarm up with leaden spades and stir up in an impenetrable cloud, which screens their obscure operations
In life, people often strive for success and greatness which is often referred to as ‘the American Dream’. In the novel The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, there are many symbols that allude to the desire to achieve the American Dream. In this novel, Jay Gatsby is attempting to climb the ranks of social status as he pursues fame and fortune. This goal can be seen through the symbols of the Valley of Ashes, the uncut books of Jay Gatsby and the green light that can be seen from the mansion of Gatsby himself.
Eckleburg, God, are always watching. As Nick, Jordan, Tom and Daisy Buchanan, and Gatsby are heading to town, Nick perceives, “We were all irritable now with the fading ale and, aware of it, we drove for a while in silence. Then as Doctor T. J. Eckleburg’s faded eyes came into sight down the road I remembered Gatsby’s caution about gasoline. ” The eyes can be spotted at the beginning of the sinful excursion, hoping to bring conviction to Nick and those involved. Eckleburg’s eyes are illustrated as “faded” because the characters in this novel and during this time period are concerned and preoccupied with their own lusts instead of containing virtue and being viewed as holy in the eye’s of God. This description is evidence that the fear of God is no longer present and being conscience of the presence of God is diminishing. The faded eyes indicate that even at the root of all wicked affairs, God, who is washed down, watches, praying the persons partaking in it would cease sinning. Nick is aware of the gasoline that is needed to stall the events that are going to take place; be knows what is morally correct, yet is fearful to remove himself from the situation or speak up. He felt a small shove of conviction within him. Fitzgerald also writes,“The locality was always vaguely disquieting, even in the broad glare of afternoon, and now I turned my head as though I had been warned of something behind. Over the ashheaps the giant eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg kept
People trying to live out the American Dream usual start out feeling very optimistic, but this normally ends with suffering and failure. This is especially prevalent in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. These themes are expressed through symbols, consisting of the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock which represents hope for Gatsby. Suffering is represented by the Eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg, because of the situations that follow after they are seen by the characters. Lastly, failure, specifically of the American Dream, is represented by the Valley of Ashes, because of all the crime, filth, and unsavoury people who live there. The symbols of the green light giving feelings of hope, the eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg
In brief, the world of The Great Gatsby can seem as sordid, loveless, commercial, and dead as the ash heaps presided over by the eyes of dr. T.J. Eckleburg. Indeed, this atmosphere is so essential that one of the alternate titles Fitzgerald considered was Among the Ash-Heaps and Millionaires.
In The Great Gatsby, the Valley of the Ashes illustrate the inequality between its inhabitants and that of West Egg and East Egg, in terms of social standing and income, as well as the hopelessness of poverty resulting from the inability of its inhabitants to rise up the socio-economic ladder. Thus, the valley represents the failure of the Dream that America promises, which is the ideal of equal opportunities for all, associated with the New World.
Fitzgerald’s style might be called imagistic. The language used is full of images-concrete verbal pictures. There is water imagery in descriptions of the rain, Long Island Sound, and the swimming pool. There are the Godlike eyes of Dr. Eckleburg and in words such as incarnation, and grail. Abstract images are used as well when there is referred to the artificial world as snobbery, sadness. These images do not only describe the world in which the...
In conclusion, the setting and geography of The Great Gatsby is an exceptional influence on many things such as characters’ personalities, themes, and foreshadowing. It relates characters to where they live and how they act. East and West Egg, the valley of the ashes, and Nee York City all house different types of people that the main characters in the story represent. The setting, especially the weather foreshadows what will happen that day in the novel. If one regards the locations and conditions they may find out a lot about what a certain character is planning to do or how they are feeling on that particular day. Therefore, the setting and geography dictates many things about the characters such as social status, personality traits, and background, while the weather incorporates a character’s feelings into the setting.