Ashes In The Great Gatsby

In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald emphasized the damage that industrialization brought to the society by depicting the environment. The Valley of Ashes represented the result of people’s demand of wealth. Contrast to the modern and prosperous downtown, The Valley of Ashes was full of

Tom Buchanan’s marital status, education, and money status all impact him throughout the book. He acts like he doesn’t care about his wife Daisy by abusing her emotionally and physically. His sense of entitlement is influenced by him having a degree from Yale and being brought up rich. He believes he was born superior to others because of his money upbringing. Tom's actions are constantly driven by his need for personal gain, ignoring any concern for the needs or emotions of the people who are close to him.

Tom Buchanan Identity Essay The identity factors that affect the way Tom’s character develops and/or is told is: his Class, Gender & Work Experience as they are the few things that i think is most influenced by and that also affects the others like Nick & Daisy, what he does for work and how people view him and how he gets away with things just because he is a man with an higher status than probably the others around him along with the luck of having experience in many parts of his life, so here goes my hate induced rambles. about Tom Buchanan and his actions that happen during the story that affects what happens. Tom Buchanan is what some people might call a wicked man for what he does, either if it's his personal relationships or what he does with others around him. Number One is his Class or how he has grown up with his money with the quote “acute limited excellence at twenty”.

Myrtle’s apartment is the opposite to the valley of ashes as it is garish and loud. Myrtle is cheap and from the working class, and so has no taste. This is reinforced through Scott Fitzgerald’s description of the apartment bought for her by Tom Buchanan, so that he can conduct his affair with her. Fitzgerald describes everything as small, ‘a small living-room, a small dining-room, a small bedroom’. As it’s only intended for two people, Myrtle and Tom, it should only be small, but this is also a hint from Fitzgerald that Tom doesn’t think very much of Myrtle as he don’t spend his money on her, which he was freely spending in Yale, but on himself. Nick says (through Fitzgerald) that the apartment ‘was crowded to the doors’ in the living room, with ‘a set of tapestried furniture, entirely too large for it’. This suggests that Myrtle wants to put on an act of being rich and wealthy, and so copies their styles but with no taste and so ruins the effect. She is trying to hide her social class, and her apartment is used by Fitzgerald to highlight an

Myrtle Wilson, also married, hides her love affair from her husband, George Wilson. She is extremely unhappy with her husband claiming when they met, "[she] thought he knew something…but he was not fit to [even] lick [her] shoe" (39). It is evident how important class and wealth is to Myrtle. Once she found out her husband was not rich she became utterly dissapointed. But when she first met Tom, "he had on a dress suit and patent leather shoes and [she] couldn 't keep [her] eyes off him" (40). She is immediately attracted to Tom’s obvious wealth. Myrtle claims Tom Buchanan is the love of her life, that being said she uses Tom to escape the “Valley of Ashes.” She longs to live the American Dream amongst the wealthy, but struggles to keep up with the

Tom Buchanan is one of the many examples that captures the lack of morality within this time period. At the beginning of the book, it is discovered Tom has a “lady on the side,”(Fitzgerald ) even though he is already married to Daisy, but the most appalling thing about the affair is that it was typical for a man of Tom’s stature to have a mistress. And it’s not just Tom living immorally, in fact, “All these characters seem to value the material side of life and are trying to strive for wealth, acceptance and power”(St. Rosemary Educational Institution). Tom Buchanan depicts the aspects of lust, greed and pride, and virtually is the concrete representation of the crippling corruption that haunts the

Myrtle yearns to be with Tom and live in his wealth but is prevented from doing so by Tom and Daisy. For instance, when Daisy tries to leave Tom for Gatsby, Tom does not exactly dismiss Myrtle, “…but there is no question that she would eventually be discarded” (Donaldson). Myrtle is so infatuated with Tom, she forgot that he can just as well choose Daisy over her. He has the upper hand, as a rich man with control over women especially when it comes to his relationships. While to Tom, Myrtle’s gender has made her just one of his possessions, to Myrtle, Tom’s rich and high status as a man has made him her only path to a higher class. Due to her infatuation with Tom, she often becomes jealous and possessive when she finds a threat to their relationship. Myrtle is so overcome with desire for Tom that she cannot stand the thought of him with another women. Even when she sees Tom in the car with Jordan Baker, Myrtle’s, “… eyes, wide with jealous terror, were fixed not on Tom, but on Jordan Baker, whom she too to be his wife” (Fitzgerald 125). Myrtle is so convinced that Tom is hers, when in reality, she is really Tom’s. Myrtle has almost forgotten the fact that as an inferior women, she has little control over the situation. The reality is that Tom was in control of the relationship and used Myrtle for his lustrous desires. Tom’s rejection of Myrtle causes her to become overrun with jealousy. In

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby he uses many characters symbols and colors to portray life in the roaring twenties. One being the valley of ashes which is looked over by Doctor T.J Eckleburg representing God watching over a moral wasteland and the brutal differences between the rich and the poor. And the color gray which represents the decay and lack of vibrance in scenes. A person we meet in the valley of ashes is George Wilson who is married to Tom's mistress Myrtle.

    Throughout F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, location is a critical motif. The contrasts between East and West, East Egg and West Egg, and the two Eggs and New York serve important thematic roles and provide the backdrops for the main conflict. Yet, there needs to be a middle ground between each of these sites, a buffer zone, as it were; there is the great distance that separates East from West; there is the bay that separates East Egg from West Egg; and, there is the Valley of Ashes that separates Long Island from New York. The last of these is probably the most striking. Yet, the traditional literal interpretation does not serve Fitzgerald's theme as well as a more

Expressions such as these only distance Tom from benign human tendencies, leaving him less worthy of receiving any compassion from his audience. By creating a character like Tom, Fitzgerald leaves the reader with the impression that one born into and consumed by wealth will become the most unappealing and bland character of all. In this way the author leaves a sense of emptiness associated with Tom and continues to sew the thread of emptiness in all other characters consumed by wealth in his story.

The novel, “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald is set in the 1920s America, New York - a class society of money -, depicts a society which exists in a state of moral confusion and chaos, through the eyes of the narrator; Nick Carraway. Fitzgerald condemns the character’s tendencies in the novel to become greedy and materialistic in order to be successful, displayed throughout the chaos that arises as a result of the repercussion of these actions. This chaos continues to grow through the unfaithful marriages and illegal practices that exists extensively throughout the novel. Furthermore, Fitzgerald explores the prejudice discrimination between the newly rich and those with “old money”. Through all of this we come to see that during the “roaring 20s” was one of moral disorder and mayhem.

Tom and Daisy Buchanan, the old money couple whose life is the epitome of luxury, aristocracy, and material wealth, are also the epitome of conniving inhumanity and dreadful dissociation from the world of compassion and empathy. From the very beginning of the novel, Tom is established as a man with “a supercilious manner” who has no sense of humility or any true care or concern for others, unless it benefits him and ensures the preservation of his lifestyle(1.19). The few times Tom exhibits any characteristics of a man with a soul, his East Egger lifestyle is on the line and he is simply putting on a show. For example, when Tom tells Daisy he truly loves her, he only does so to ensure that he doesn’t lose her to Gatsby, as she is a quintessential part of maintaining his reputation as an enviable, well to do East Egg man.

She lives in the Valley of Ashes with her husband who owns a crumbling garage. She is unhappy in her marriage, so she is having an affair with Tom Buchanan. Tom is her ideal man because he is wealthy and can afford to buy her expensive things whereas her husband can barely afford to keep his garage open. Initially, Myrtle is described as being "in the middle thirties, and faintly stout" and containing "no facet or gleam of beauty." Immediately after she leaves the Valley of ashes with Tom, her character is described completely different. She is described in elegant detail similar to that of the rich because now she is immersed in the rich lifestyle. Fitzgerald describes her as wearing "a brown figured muslin, which stretched tight over her rather wide hips." The way Fitzgerald describes her also makes her seem beautiful whereas before she was described as having no "facet of beauty." Nick is even comments on Myrtle's sudden change in personality when she is around Tom. He states, "with the influence of the dress her personality had also undergone a change. The intense vitality that had been so markable in the garage was converted into impressive hauteur. Her laughter, her gestures, her assertions, became more violently affected moment by moment, and as she expanded the room grew smaller around her." The reason Myrtle was described differently and changed so drastically was all due to class distinction. Myrtle

Symbolism appears in many forms of art including literature, music, and art. Symbols represent a meaning that is not clearly stated by the author. The novel represents everyday objects and a location that contributes to the story through the characters’ actions. The symbols do not directly affect the characters however, they influence the characters’ action. The characters in The Great Gatsby mention the items throughout the novel and describe how those connect to their actions.

F.Scott Fitzgerald,uses symbolism to call attention to the struggles of modern American society by his representation of the valley of ashes. The valley of ashes in 'Gatsby' lies between the affluent refuge of the Eggs, signifying the human misery. Think of the Wilson's no matter how much they work or what sin they may commit they will never escape the grasp of poverty. The valley, therefore, is meant as a sobering foil to the dreamy opulence of the Eggs. That symbolizes the eternal hell that people like Myrtle and Wilson will never escape.