More handpicked essays just for you.
Essay on nick carraway of the great gatsby
Essay on nick carraway of the great gatsby
Essay on nick carraway of the great gatsby
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
The valley of ashes is a place between New York and the West Egg, where the eyes of T.J. Eckleberg lie. The valley of ashes is a place in which carries many trials for each of the characters, holding their hardships while they all try to reach the common goal of the American dream. The valley of ashes isn’t a place of wealth or prosperity; however every person must first pass through it to get to a better place. In his novel, The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald uses the valley of ashes, the eyes of T.J. Eckleberg, and the light symbolically.
The valley of ashes is a place that is located in between New York and the West Egg. The Valley of Ashes is a very desolate plain where middle class people live and work. It is a very gray valley where New York’s ashes are dumped. There is a small foul river located on the side of the valley of ashes perhaps to symbolize the people’s bad, negative attitudes toward their own lives. Nick says in detail “The valley of ashes I bounded on one side by a small foul river, and when the drawbridge is up to let barges through, the passengers on waiting trains can stare at the dismal scene for as long as half an hour.” (28). The middle class people not only live there, but they also work there by cleaning up the ashes. Nick explains “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 and rising smoke and finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air.” (27). Mr. George Wilson is a prime example of a middle class man who lives and works in the valley of ashes. He owns a gas station and a car shop, where he works from the early du...
... middle of paper ...
...efore us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter- tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And one fine morning---. (189)
F. Scott Fitzgerald uses the valley of ashes, the eyes of T.J. Eckleberg, and the light symbolically in The Great Gatsby. The valley of ashes represents the shallow and hollow lives of the rich people, the sad, sorrowful, and selfless lives of the middle class people, and struggles and pains that every character endures. The eyes of T.J. Eckleberg represent God and how he watches our every move, while also representing George Wilson’s love for his wife, and his drive to keep his family alive. The light is another important symbol in this novel. The light symbolizes Gatsby’s perseverance to get Daisy and also on a bright, successful future. Each symbol is critical in this novel to understand the common American dream.
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 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
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.
Fitzgerald uses setting to criticise society’s loss of morality and the growth of consumerism after the Great War. The rise of the stock market in the 1920s enabled business to prosper in America. However, although the owners of industry found themselves better off wages didn’t rise equally, causing the gap between the rich and poor to grow markedly. Parkinson argues that the settings “represent [these] alternative worlds of success and failure in a modern capitalist society”. The valley of ashes symbolises this failure and moral decay, acting as a foil to the affluent “world of success”, East Egg, and highlighting that the lower classes must suffer to support its existence. This setting is introduced in Chapter 2 and is described as where “ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens”. The personification of the environment creates the sense that these failures are rooted in the land, suggesting that poverty is an inescapable part of American society. This is emphasised through the use of tripling which creates a sense of endlessness. By describing the men who live there as “crumbling through the pow...
... York City consists of a long stretch of desolate land created by the dumping of industrial ashes. It represents the moral and social decay that results from the uninhibited pursuit of wealth, as the rich indulge themselves with regard for nothing but their own pleasure. The valley of ashes also symbolizes the plight of the poor, like George Wilson, who live among the dirty ashes and lose their vitality as a result.
Although we spent little time here in the novel, F. Scott Fitzgerald utilized “The Valley of the Ashes” to its fullest. In this novel “The Valley of Ashes” symbolizes a great number of issues of morality in this society. “The Valley of Ashes” was located between New York and the two Eggs. “The Valley of Ashes” is a barren wasteland made of the ashes of which were dumped there as a byproduct of various modern items and was polluting this area. Although the valley of ashes is treated as ““nowhere”, a place to be driven through on the way to “somewhere” by the characters from both East and West Egg.”(Angela D. Hickley 1), Fitzgerald riddles it with heavy symbolism. Fitzgerald uses “The Valley...
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 's mind.
In the valley of ashes “The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg are blue and gigantic — their irises are one yard high. They look out of no face, but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a nonexistent nose” (Fitzgerald 23).This builboard is located int eh valley of ases which is between New York and east and west egg. The valley of ashes is where the lower class lives and Fitzgerald describes it as “a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; were ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and, finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and ready crumbling through the powdery air” (Fitzgerald 23). The valley of ashes also dymbolises all the moral decay going on in the novel such as: cheating, lying, abuse,and illigal activity.
Throughout F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, there are many prominent symbols that pass, seen or unseen, to a reader. The very noticeable symbol is the billboard that contains The Eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg, which are compared by one character with “The eyes of God”. A lesser known, but still prominent, symbol is the color green, like the light off of Daisy’s dock across the bay. One of the least thought of symbols though is the place known as “The Valley of Ash”. These symbols are very important to Fitzgerald’s book and reflect of the time of the 1920’s.
Throughout The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald conveys how there are many sides to social class and the explosion of the workers just how myrtle is an example of exposure of the working class and the valley of ashes the plight of the poor. This shows the real America and how there's no “dream”. Through the description of the valley of ashes which represent the social class Fitzgerald conveys the plight of the poor.
One of the most important symbolisms of the valley of ashes is moral and social decay. For instance, in the novel, Nick talks about “the eyes of Doctor T.J Eckleburg” and he describes the eyes as “Gigantic” and “they look out of no face” (Fitzgerald 26). These eyes might represent god in some way because these eyes watch over everyone. But why would God be in the valley of ashes? Fitzgerald uses the symbolism of god to reveal the decay of religious values because God is in a way replaced by money. Moreover,
The Valley of Ashes symbolizes absolute poverty and hopelessness. “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 and rising smoke and, finally, with a transcendent effort, of ash-grey men, who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air.” The lower classes who inhibit this
Fitzgerald described it as the “Valley of ashes”, where the reader can come to conclusion that it was where many factories and stuff were located, or at least the jobs in which one did not have to go to school for... “ where ashes take forms of houses and chimneys”.“ 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 and rising smoke and, finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air. Occasionally a line of gray cars crawls along an invisible track, gives out a ghastly creak, and comes to rest, and immediately the ash-grey men swarm up with leaden spades and stir up an impenetrable cloud, which screens their obscure operations from your sight”(page
The novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is known for having themes of wealth and luxury. However, in chapter 2, the reader is exposed to an opposite theme. The narrator, Nick Carraway, describes the valley of ashes a place as “fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens”. Shifting to today’s terms, the valley of ashes can be as a “dumpster”, not only physically, but socially, picturing the desolation and poverty found in that place. The author also introduces the figure of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg’s eyes, which represent the eyes of God watching the decay of human morals and the increase in iniquities during the 1920’s. There lives Mr. Wilson and Mrs. Wilson a couple that are bound to frustration
Symbols are always a big part in all the novels. The symbols also perform a big role throughout the novel. In the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gatsby loved Daisy and always looking to her house. Tom has an affair with a women who lived in the Valley of Ashes. In this novel, valley of ashes and the green light goes through the novel, suggesting that the decay of American dream.