Preview

The Great Gatsby Valley Of Ashes Essay

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
595 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Great Gatsby Valley Of Ashes Essay
Analyze Fitzgerald’s presentation of the Valley of Ashes at the start of chapter 2.
Halfway between West Egg and New York lies the ‘valley of ashes’ and this is the ‘desolate’ wasteland, which is also home to the Wilson family. The term ‘desolate’ is used to describe a place that is depressingly empty and solitary. Fitzgerald includes this ‘fantastic farm’ to emphasize to the readers, the sharp contrast between luxury and health with poverty and struggle. The valley serves to represent the damage that the upper class characters such as Daisy and Tom can inflict on society.
Through the Wilson family, we get the impression that this is a place where the victims of the American Dream reside and is home to those who have very little to look forward to in the future and have very little going on in their lives. Unlike New York, this barren site lacks extravagance and
…show more content…
It is the complete opposite of life in the West Egg and in New York. Transferred epithet as well as personification is used when describing the movement of the cars. It is said that even the cars ‘crawl’ and once again, this stresses to the readers the emptiness in the valley. Up until this juncture, Fitzgerald uses cars as a symbol of power and along with power tends to co me wealth. For all the wealthy characters in the novel such as Gatsby and the Buchanan, a car comes along with the lavish lifestyles they lead, but if you compare this to the Wilsons, they fix cars just in order to make a living. It’s as if to those that live in New York, it’s just a good time but for those in the valley of ashes, this is what they call life. It is evident that everything here is devalued and mounts to nothing in New

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The valley of ashes serves as a symbol to represent where all the waste from the rich goes to which is the poor.…

    • 221 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The setting of the Valley of Ashes is key in telling the reader how the excessive lives lived by the wealthy is harming the less fortunate. Firstly, the repetition of the word ‘ash’ allows the reader to fully understand how desolate the Valley of Ashes is. It carries connotations of smoke, and dullness. The word ‘ash’ may be symbolic, as this is where the fire has been burnt out; there are no excessive parties, and the people here are not as colourful or as full of life as those in West Egg and East Egg. Furthermore, the valley is described as ‘fantastic farm and grotesque gardens’. As both farms and gardens are places in which things grow, it could be informing the reader that the mass production of things, along with the wild lifestyles of the wealthy, is causing this destruction, and that it will grow if it continues. It allows the reader to understand that the people living there are almost bi-products of the wealthy…

    • 1301 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The persistent reminder of impoverishment hangs over the people who live there are the eyes of T.J. Eckleburg, plastered on a billboard that looks out of place in a world of people who would not be able to afford his service,…

    • 580 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Rather than simply telling his readers she lives in the slums, he uses textual evidence to link the barren valley of ashes to Myrtle's character. Fitzgerald refers to the valley of ashes as a " fantastic farm" in which "ashes grow like wheat," when in fact it is just a dumping ground for industrial waste. Those words portray Myrtle's tragic figure in the sense that she has to live in a representation of the high-class, lavish East Egg. The valley of ashes is also a representation of the situation of the poor. For example, the author portrays Myrtle to be a tragic figure that wants to have all the riches in life; unfortunately, she is set back and in a way shunned out of that category because she is just another one of those "ash-grey men" lost, somewhere, within those filthy…

    • 424 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Fitzgerald’s descriptions of the settings in chapter 2 also help to tell the story. Two main settings feature in this chapter; the valley of ashes and Myrtle’s apartment. Fitzgerald describes the valley of ashes as ‘a certain desolate area of land’ and ‘a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens’. The valley of ashes is significant in this chapter, and in the whole novel, as it symbolises the huge contrast between the rich and the poor in…

    • 1103 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    7. The fur serves as a symbol to Miss Brill herself and the meaning of the final sentence shows that she admits her empty life.…

    • 648 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    those who have not yet achieved the American Dream. In the valley of ashes lives Myrtle…

    • 164 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The negative outlook of the Valley of Ashes also connects to the people that live their. For example, George and Myrtle Wilson own a house in the valley of ashes. The negative perspective of the valley connects with the Wilson’s personalities. Myrtle carries on an affair with Tom Buchanan (mentioned numerous times throughout the book), and George is so controlling of his wife that he locks her in a room (chapter 8 ). The evils that the Wilson’s engage in throughout the book connect with the evils in the valley of ashes.…

    • 1104 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The people, the houses, and the cars are all covered in ashes, making them physically gray which greatly contributes to the overwhelming feeling of somberness. When Tom and Nick arrive at the Wilson’s house “a gleam of hope” springs into George’s eyes and Myrtle has “an immediately perceptible vitality about her as if the nerves of her body were continually smouldering”. This shows that people from outside of the valley excite the ever-dreary inhabitants of the valley because they don’t carry the same gray façade. The Valley of Ashes symbolizes the moral decay and plight of the less fortunate hidden between the beauty of West Egg and New York. It symbolizes an aspect of the American Dream, the dream of finding fortune, fame, and true love, because it illustrates shattered illusions and the disappearance of dreams. East Egg and West Egg are brimming with people full of potential while The Valley of Ashes…

    • 734 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    It wasn’t the soft, ethereal glow of dawn’s early light peeping through the ill-fitting curtains that gently lured Tom from a restless night’s sleep. It wasn’t the promise of a new day, free from the nightmares that still plagued his tortured mind or the pleasing chirrup of the house sparrows greeting the sun with their morning song of joy. It was something more physical, something visceral, an inherent perception of a long-forgotten pleasure slowly rising from within.…

    • 2255 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    People in the train station are so busy and ready to rush out that they caused a “impenetrable cloud.” Fitzgerald shows that these are the individuals can not enjoy the luxury that money could buy. The “cloud’ is full and crowded, representing how the time moves fast. Everyone is focussed on going to work and making enough money to just to survive in a grotesque place. Fitzgerald uses the Valley of Ashes to help understand the big contrast between what the wealthy has versus the poor. Fitzgerald uses the Valley to exhibit social corruption as people have to be the richest to be at the top. Individuals are fixated on making as much money as possible, so they could achieve their ceaseless American Dream. The rich, such as Tom helps himself to whatever he wants without regard of the lower…

    • 1322 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Symbolism is big part of F. Scott Fitzgerald work in his most successful romance, The Great Gatsby. Symbolism happens when symbolic meaning is attributed to objects, figures or characters. Throughout the novel Fitzgerald utilizes many symbols such as characters, places and colors. His use of symbolism ads meaning to a certain object, character or place.…

    • 542 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    He begins by establishing this theme through Daisy and Tom. Daisy’s voice often has references to wealth: “Her voice is full of money”. The synecdoche here represents Daisy herself as an object of desirability and high status. Daisy represents perfection to Gatsby because she has the wealth, class, charm and sophistication that Gatsby has wanted all of his life. The life that they lead seems to lack direction and meaning, the couple drift unrestfully to wherever people “were rich together”. This shows that their behavior is dominated by social conventions of consumerism, it is important for them to be seen with people like themselves. Although Daisy has such a privileged life style her face is “sad”, here Fitzgerald is commenting that money cannot buy happiness or true fulfillment.…

    • 571 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    There is Myrtle Wilson's gaudy, flashy hotel paradise in which she can pretend that she is glamorous, elite, wanted and loved. She clings fiercely enough to this ragged dream to brave the righteous anger of Tom Buchanan by voicing her jealous terror that he will return to his wife. There is a desperation to her full, spirited style of living, she wants so much to escape the grey, dead land of the Valley of Ashes that she colours her life with any brightness she can find, be it broken glass or diamonds. Nick describes land she finds herself in as a wasteland, a desert, saying "this is the 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" (page 29).…

    • 1024 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Fitzgerald’s descriptions of the settings in chapter 2 also help to tell the story. Two main settings feature in this chapter; the valley of ashes and Myrtle’s apartment. Fitzgerald describes the valley of ashes as ‘a certain desolate area of land’ and ‘a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens’. The valley of ashes is significant in this chapter, and in the whole novel, as it symbolises the huge contrast between the rich and the poor in American society. The Valley of Ashes symbolises the loss of the “American dream” for so many.…

    • 633 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays