What Does The Valley Of Ashes Symbolize In The Great Gatsby

Throughout the novel Fitzgerald has incorporated numerous symbols that are meant to challenge our ideas of the 20’s as well as strengthen the book as a whole. A major symbol in the novel is the Valley of Ashes. The Valley is a wasteland home to many poor people covered in ash and coal, between New York City and West Egg. The Valley of Ashes is important to the book, because it represents the people who were lost between the riches of West Egg and the adventure and promise of New York City. The Valley of Ashes represents a greater theme of society and class, and emphasizes the drop off between the rich and poor. Another symbol both represented in the book and the movie is the eyes of T.J. Eckleburg. The eyes of Eckleburg represent a greater

figure looking down on the people, or God looking down on the disappointments in the world. They eyes are also located in the Valley of Ashes which is important because when West Egg people drive through, it feels as if they are being scorned for not helping and giving back to the people living there. The eyes also can be made as a symbol to represent the lack of religion in the novel. Throughout the novel religion is never mentioned, and Fitzgerald realizes that the best the America can do is place God on a billboard as and advertisement.
Color is also a symbol represented in The Great Gatsby that has very significant meaning to the story and the theme of the fake and the real.

When describing Daisy, Nick calls her the Golden Girl, and when describing Jordan he says that she has golden arms. This is important because both Jordan and Daisy are from old money families who made their money without bootlegging, and also have endless amount of money. However when describing Gatsby and his parties, it’s described as “yellow cocktail music” and two girls attending are wearing yellow dresses. On top of that Gatsby owns a yellow car not a gold car. This is important because it shows the contrast between yellow and golf or the real and the fake. The new money or fake money people wear yellow or own yellow things, to try and resemble the old money people as much as possible. Old money people don’t need to do so, because they have so much money and can wear and buy all the gold they want. Another symbol in the novel is the Owl eyed man. Owls can be wise, but are also known to bring about death. In the early stages of the novel the owl eyed man was the man who got into a car accident, and shortly after we learn that in fact another person was driving. The symbol of the owl eyed man is important because it carries a theme of death and despair, which happens later in the novel when daisy hits and kills Myrtle while driving Gatsby’s

car.
Another symbol in the book is the books that Gatsby owns.

The owl eyed man is found inspecting Gatsby’s books and claims that they are uncut, which means that Gatsby owns all of the books, but has yet to read one of them. The books are very important to the looming theme of lying and deceiving. Gatsby wants everyone to think that he is a very well educated man from Oxford that used his smarts to accumulate his massive fortune. However the truth is that he isn’t truly book smart and used organized crime and bootlegged to achieve his wealth. They books are a symbol for Gatsby being a fraud. Lastly, Gatsby mansion is a major symbol in the novel. He owns the mansion and throws the extravagant parties all in hope that Daisy comes and he can be reunited with her. The mansion is a symbol of Gatsby’s love of Daisy, and without the mansion the love affair would have never taken place. The mansion is very important because Gatsby uses his new money to buy a house that will attract Daisy and rivals Tom and his old money house. Symbols are used often and thoughtfully by Fitzgerald, and are important to the connection of themes in the

novel.