Valley Of Ashes In The Great Gatsby

“The biggest disease known to mankind is loneliness.” (Author unknown). This quote describes darkness in one’s life when one tries everything in his power to be with someone and it does not work. This is the case in the novel The Great Gatsby when the main character Gatsby falls in love with Daisy, yet she is taken and unavailable but he continues to chase her and only ends up short. In The Great Gatsby, the author F. Scott Fitzgerald, uses literary elements in the novel is to create the story.

“Color is a power which directly influences the soul.” (Wassily Kandinsky) Color can give a source of information and also can affect mood, emotions, and behaviors. The Great Gatsby, written by Fitzgerald and includes characters named Gatsby, Nick, Tom, Daisy, and Jordan. The story follows Gatsby mainly with Nick as the narrator as Gatsby goes off the deep end chasing a dream. The color repeats throughout the passage and is related to the characters or settings like Daisy and white, New York and gray, or light at the end of the dock and green.

The Great Gatsby is one of the most read pieces of literature throughout the current modern Western world. High school kids all across the globe must learn and read it as part of their curriculum. One of the aspects that makes this novel so notable is that Fitzgerald, at no point in the story, needs to convey to his audience the theme of his novel directly. The main points of his novel are brought out by the powerful symbols he infuses in the book. Not only does he use them to convey his theme, but also ties them in to the rest of the story. Every aspect of this book is affected by the presence of one of his symbols. Through the use of the green light, the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg, and the Valley of the Ashes as symbols,

    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

In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, the valley of ashes, an industrial wasteland between West Egg and Manhattan, is a “solemn dumping ground,” (24) characterized by its imagery of dust and “ash-gray men” (25). Above all, the decrepit billboard of the defunct oculist Dr. T.J. Eckleburg watches over the gray landscape where George and Myrtle Wilson live above their dusty garage. George Wilson, a poor resident of the valley of ashes, physically blends into his surroundings, “mingling immediately with the cement color of the walls,” (26) making him the human embodiment of the valley. Next to the valley is West Egg, home to those with new money, like Jay Gatsby. Gatsby’s life is the idyllic picture of the new world in the roaring twenties, where every person has an equal opportunity for success through hard work and tenacity. However,

Another symbol used in The Great Gatsby is the Valley of Ashes. The Valley of Ashes is located between West Egg and New York City, and all it is, is land with the dumping of industrial ashes all over it. It represents the moral and social decay that results from wealth, as the rich enjoy nothing but their own pleasure. It also symbolizes the poor who live among the dirty ashes and lose their strength as a result. “This is a valley of ashes-a fantastic farm where ashes grown 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 powder air.”(27) Looking over the valley of ashes are the eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg. “The Eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg are blue and gigantic…they look out of no face, but instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles.”(27) The Eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg could represent God staring down on the American society. They’re just a pair of fading eyes painted on an old billboard over the valley of ashes. Fitzgerald uses the eyes to suggest symbols only mean something because of the characters put meaning in them. George Wilson makes the connection of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg’s eyes symbolizing God. They could also represent the meaninglessness of the

Symbolism is strong throughout the novel; from the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock symbolizing how close Gatsby is to Daisy (yet still so far away), to the valley of ashes representing the lost hopes and dreams of the people in the city. There is also the mantle clock, a symbol of lost time

The book ‘The Great Gatsby’ presented how powerful love is. And how it ultimately blinded Gatsby and made him lose everything including his life. The green light, the valley of ashes and the weather played a huge part in representing Gatsby's uneventful love for Daisy in many ways as well. The valley of ashes initially showed the true separation between Tom and Daisy.

Symbolism is the use of symbols to represent an abstract idea or object of quality, is used in literature in order to communicate a deeper meaning of the plot. In the highly praised novel, The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, symbols are mentioned frequently to provide insight, such as the glowing green light Gatsby finds himself mesmerized with. The green light Gatsby reaches out to catch at the end of Daisy’s dock represents he hopes and dreams he has for himself, and it is symbolic of Daisy as his ultimate goal, not only romantically, but her money and social standing. Fitzgerald use the greenlight as a symbol of Gatsby goal because what Gatsby wants was on the other side of the dock and how the greenlight is Gatsby’s hope.

The Great Gatsby is filled with symbols and symbolism, which try to convey Fitzgerald's ideas to the reader. The symbols are uniquely involved in the plot of the story, which makes their implications more real. There are three major symbols that serve very important significance in the symbolism of the novel. They are "the valley of the ashes," the reality that represents the corruption in the world, the green light of Daisy's lap that Gatsby sees across the bay and lastly, the symbolism of the East Egg and West Egg or more important the east and the west of the country.

Scott Fitzgerald uses geography to convey symbolism, characterization, morals , and social class. In the novel The Great Gatsby the Valley Of Ashes is symbolized as poverty and hopelessness. Fitzgerald depicts the Valley Of Ashes as a grey and gloomy area. Men covered in ashes dimly walking in hope of leaving this gloomy and wretched place.

Imagine a world where one side of the equator was filled with wealth, happiness, and content. Now imagine the other side of the equator filled with poverty, sadness, and death. These two completely opposing halves enhance each other's descriptions and make one think of each side more deeply about the concept. This same scenario is also present in one of America’s favorite novels based upon the 1920s and the American dream. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald juxtaposes two contrasting places, the Valley of Ashes and New York City, using imagery to magnify the difference between reality and a fantasy, which is central to the meaning of the work.

Many times we hear of society's affect on people; society influencing the way people think and act.  Hardly mentioned is the reverse: peoples' actions and lifestyles affecting society as a whole and how it is characterized.  Thus, society is a reflection of its inhabitants and in The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, it is a wasteland described as the "valley of ashes."  Since the characters of this novel make up this wasteland, aren't they the waste?  Symbolically, this waste represents the lack of ethics of the 1920's society and civilization's decay.  In The Great Gatsby, morals deficiencies such as a lack of God, selfishness, and idleness are reflective of a society as doomed as

Symbolism provides an imagery that helps facilitate a deeper understanding. Taking place in the 1920’s, The Great Gatsby, is set during a time when society both put up facades while also striving to achieve wealth and high social status. The classic novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald cleverly uses multiple symbols throughout the novel to expose the issues with society at that time. The ultimate goal of this novel is to elaborate the class struggles and illustrate the goal to achieve of American dream. The Great Gatsby, The author, F. Scott Fitzgerald, uses the infamous green light, the metaphor of an egg, and pearls to show and support the overall theme of the American Dream.

In the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the setting takes place in the 1920s. In the 1920s there were two social classes the rich and the poor. The wealthy and poor are complete opposites,in fact, this style of opposites, or juxtaposition, is shown in several ways in this novel. For example, the Valley of Ashes, in which the poor live & the West & East Egg, in which the wealthy live. The Valley of Ashes lies right between the West & East Egg & there are several differences between the East & West Egg & the Valley of Ashes that make them complete opposites.