The Gray Gatsby “The valley of ashes is 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,” (23) In The Great Gatsby, between the East Egg and the West Egg, lay the valley of ashes. Though not literally consisting of ashes, the area gets its nickname because of the industrialization of the area as well as the smog from the smokestacks decorating nearby factories that thickens the air. The valley of ashes is an effective symbol of the uselessness of succeeding in achieving The American Dream. The valley of ashes lay between East Egg and West Egg, and many of the characters in The Great Gatsby find themselves …show more content…
Fitzgerald also notably calls the people in the area “ash-grey men” who “swarm” around the trains and factories like insects. Symbolizing the machine-like function of working class society at this time. The American Dream in the 1920’s is no longer a dream of bootstraps and joy, but has been transformed into a persistent longing for something unachievable. The American Dream in The Great Gatsby is a dream of wealth, happiness, and love otherwise known as “commercial happiness.” The valley of ashes is an effective symbol of the failed ideal of The American Dream because most of the sketchy things the characters, who are most commonly viewed as glamorous do, take place in this designated area. One such event is when Gatsby convinces Nick to enable Gatsby and Daisy to have an affair: "I'm going to make a big request of you today," he said, pocketing his souvenirs with satisfaction, "so I thought you ought to know something about me. I didn't want you to think I was just some …show more content…
When Myrtle Wilson dies, her husband is depicted with “glazed eyes turned out to the ashheaps, where small grey clouds took on fantastic shape and scurried here and there in the faint dawn wind,” (159). This mention of ashheaps during his time of grief and loss is an indirect mention of his declining mental state because of the in between ashes and the color gray symbolize throughout the novel. The word “ashheaps” notable because, once again, Fitzgerald is conveying the declining pleasing ideals of The American Dream. The American Dream in The Great Gatsby is one of “commercial happiness” and is very well exemplified by the motif of the valley of ashes because of the events that unfold there as well as the metaphor of ashes throughout the novel. The valley of ashes is an ironic middle ground between the rich and the poor where those who can’t keep up are buried and those who can keep up are left unimpressed. In The Great Gatsby, nobody ends up is truly satisfied, and everyone ends up in a metaphorically gray, ashy
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.
The American Dream is the concept that anyone, no matter who he or she is, can become successful in his or her life through perseverance and hard work. It is commonly perceived as someone who was born and starts out as poor but ambitious, and works hard enough to achieve wealth, prosperity, happiness, and stability. Clearly, Fitzgerald uses Gatsby to personify the destruction of the American Dream Gatsby started out as a poor farming boy, meticulously planning his progression to become a great man. When Gatsby’s father showed Nick the journal where Gatsby wrote his resolution, he says, “Jimmy was bound to get ahead. He always had some resolves like this or something. Do you notice what he 's got about improving his mind?” (182). The written resolution demonstrates how ambitious and innocent Gatsby was in pursuing his dreams and how much he wanted to improve himself that his father applauded him, which once characterized the process of pursuing the American Dream. While pursuing Daisy (Gatsby’s American Dream), Gatsby becomes corrupt and destroys himself. He did not achieve his fortune through honest hard work, but through dishonesty and illegal activities. Furthermore, Gatsby has a large, extravagant mansion, drives flashy cars, throws lavish parties filled with music and
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
Dubbed the ‘roaring 20s’, because of the massive rise in America’s economy, this social and historical context is widely remembered for its impressive parties and sensationalist attitude. However, Fitzgerald also conveys a more sinister side to this culture through numerous affairs, poverty and a rampage of organised crime. By exposing this moral downfall, Fitzgerald reveals to the responder his value of the American dream and his belief of its decline. As a writer, Fitzgerald was always very much concerned with the present times, consequently, his writing style and plot reflects his own experiences of this era. So similar were the lives of Fitzgerald’s characters to his own that he once commented, “sometimes I don't know whether Zelda (his wife) and I are real or whether we are characters in one of my novels”. In 1924, Fitzgerald was affected by Zelda’s brief affair with a young French pilot, provoking him to lock her in their house. A construction of this experience can be seen in the way Fitzgerald depicts the 1290s context. For example in ‘The Great Gatsby’, there are numerous affairs and at one point, Mr Wilson locks up his wife to pre...
“The valley of ashes is 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”(Fitzgerald 28). This is representation of the social classes and how the wealthy not only perturbedly but physically ruined the townspeople. In pursuit of their own success and happiness the affluent individuals have no regard for the others that are being dragged through their path. The valley of ashes also represents not only the rich hurting others, but themselves and making their souls hollow. In result of this it overall symbolizes hopelessness and
Hope for a better life that which can never be satisfied. “The American dream is not to be a reality, in that it no longer exists except in the minds of men like Gatsby, whom it destroys in their espousal and relentless pursuit of it.” (Pearson 645) Obviously this suggests that the American dream is all an illusion created by society to place hope into men who are born in poverty and without purpose. Gatsby abandons his poverty stricken parents and partners with gangster Wolfshiem in his crimes of bootlegging because he began to dream this American dream which gave him hope he started to enter into his realm of idealism and genuinely believed he was the “son of [materialistic] god, destined for greatness.” (Pearson, 642) With this growing hope for the better future embedded deep inside Gatsby begins to turn a blind eye to everything around him. Although Gatsby on the outside achieved the American dream with his lavish parties and enormous house with thousands of maids tending him and imported shirts Gatsby wanted status and daisy represented the treasure chest his ultimate goal was to win her and being in his realm and so blind towards everything else Gatsby falls victim he doesn’t realize that daisy is innocent pure the perfect woman but she is in reality bounded by money status if he realized soon enough he would have been able to avoid his
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...
Jay Gatsby’s life proves the unrealistic expectations people set for themselves when trying to achieve The American Dream. Gatsby used what we think of as The American Dream to help gain Daisy’s love back through things she left him for even if the means didn’t justify the ends. People will do anything to achieve the American Dream and although they have good intentions the American Dream seems to corrupt the mind of even the purest of souls. Gatsby becomes consumed with money, social status, and what his leisure time consisted of because he cannot obtain what he truly wants even with all of his money which shows that the American Dream he strived will never become a reality.
Happiness symbolises a form of content, a form of satisfaction that can lead to several types of actions. In the Great Gatsby, happiness is portrayed in unusual forms with different characters, however every single character has some form of a dream in mind. Fitzgerald juxtaposes his influence of T.S. Elliot’s use of Valley of the Ashes showing poverty, decay and lost spiritualism with the rich lifestyle of West Egg as he shows the wealth, parties and liveliness of this Egg. The Egg represents the symbol of birth and life, as well as the fragility of society and mainly the fragility of dreams. Each character in the novel has their own interpretation of the ‘American Dream – the pursuit of happiness’ as they all lack happiness due to the careless nature of American society during the Jazz Age.
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.
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.
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
The American dream is an ideal in American literature that has been around for centuries. An idea that your average Joe can go from rags to riches, while finding love and having high social status on the way up the ladder. The American dream can be based off the idea of self-reliance, freedom, and just having a general dream to do something better for your life or for your family’s life. In The Great Gatsby, however, the American dream was more focused on materialistic items such as big houses, nice clothes, and fancy cars. Jay Gatsby started as a poor man in his early life, but ended up being quite wealthy. In his early life, he was very dedicated to his dreams, even writing a daily schedule to better himself. But once he acquired a great deal of wealth, he became blinded by his need for luxurious things, and never truly figured out that money cannot buy love and it cannot buy happiness. That instance is what made the novel tragic. Gatsby thought that having wealth meant he had a chance at getting his old love, Daisy, back.
The Great Gatsby takes place in the 1920’s which is also known as the Jazz Age. During this time, society functions under the influence of pursuing the American Dream, but only a few are capable to live it. People during this time period consists of huge hopes and dreams for improvement of themselves that could also be mistaken by greed. The American Dream is when someone from the bottom class has been working their way up becoming very successful. The main goal was to show off a great quantity money, luxurious cars, a big house, etc. However, The American Dream lifestyle was also inherited by family. Although the American Dream was earned by hard work and dedication, the characters in The Great Gatsby showed their materialistic ways to pursue this dream.
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...