What Does The Valley Of Ashes Symbolize In The Great Gatsby
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.
The Valley of Ashes is a symbolic place located “ Half way between West Egg and New York” (Fitzgerald 23); it is a place of industrial trash “ a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens, where ashes take 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” (Fitzgerald 23) where Nick and Tom go to find Tom’s lover, Myrtle. It represents selfishness, the pursuit of wealth without caring for the others, social injustice, contrast with the rich east egg, the materialism, and the other side of the American dream. In it occur the affair of Tom and Myrtle and the death of Gatsby and Myrtle. All the events taken place in The Valley of Ashes are viewed through the eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg, a billboard with eyes symbolizing God, viewing everything, every sin, judging everyone “But above the gray land and the spams of bleak dust which drift endlessly over it, you …show more content…
Especially when it is portrayed as a green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. This light symbolizes the American dream, Gatsby’s dream. It simplifies clearly the vision of Fitzgerald about the American Dream “ Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us . it eluded us then, but that’s no matter- tomorrow we will run faster, stretch our arms farther… And one morning -So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past” (Fitzgerald
The Valley of Ashes is a symbolic place located “ Half way between West Egg and New York” (Fitzgerald 23); it is a place of industrial trash “ a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens, where ashes take 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” (Fitzgerald 23) where Nick and Tom go to find Tom’s lover, Myrtle. It represents selfishness, the pursuit of wealth without caring for the others, social injustice, contrast with the rich east egg, the materialism, and the other side of the American dream. In it occur the affair of Tom and Myrtle and the death of Gatsby and Myrtle. All the events taken place in The Valley of Ashes are viewed through the eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg, a billboard with eyes symbolizing God, viewing everything, every sin, judging everyone “But above the gray land and the spams of bleak dust which drift endlessly over it, you …show more content…
Especially when it is portrayed as a green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. This light symbolizes the American dream, Gatsby’s dream. It simplifies clearly the vision of Fitzgerald about the American Dream “ Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us . it eluded us then, but that’s no matter- tomorrow we will run faster, stretch our arms farther… And one morning -So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past” (Fitzgerald