How Does The Valley Of Ashes Symbolize In The Great Gatsby

“A single green light Minute and far away, That might have been the end of the dock.”(Fitzgerald)The novel Great Gatsby takes place during the 1920's right around after the 1st World War. It’s about a young man named Nick, from the east he moved to the west to start out in the bonds business and along the way meets Jay Gatsby. In the novel Great Gatsby F.Scott Fitzgerald uses many symbols throughout the novel to highlight key ideas. Characters and places are also used as symbols to Highlight and add a difference to the novel. Fitzgerald also uses symbols to get the messages of the novel point across to the reader for a better understanding. The valley of ashes is a symbolic place used in the novel. The valley of ashes is first introduced in chapter two when Tom takes Nick to meet Myrtle Wilson, which is Tom's mistress. “About halfway between West Egg and New York the motor road hastily joins the railroad and runs beside it for a quarter of a mile, so as to shrink away from a certain desolate

“In a moment she looked at me with an absolute smirk on her lovely face as if she had asserted her membership in a rather distinguished secret society to which she and Tom belonged.”(8 Fitzgerald) East Egg represents old money, meaning that the people there are high-class and proper. Their wealth stretches back generations and helps to cover all manner of sins. Daisy and Tom Buchanan are horrible people and should not have what they do but they are privileged because of their “old money” and are able to achieve the American dream they feel as if they are better than everyone else because they have money and can achieve the American dreams unlike others and can survive in society just because they have old money. The East Egg is like Gold. in addition to all the other places around it which whereas the valley of ashes is like Dirt. Which also shows where the difference from