Failure Of The American Dream In 'The Valley Of Ashes'

“The percentage of Americans who say they are in the lower-middle or lower class has risen from a quarter of the adult population to about a third in the past four years, according to a national survey of 2,508 adults by the Pew Research Center” (http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2012/09/10/a-third-of-americans-now-say-they-are-in-the-lower-classes/). Today’s adults stating that they are in the lower class are most likely to have had a rough life growing up, and can now not escape the lower class. Social class is the idea of “a division of a society based on social and economic status” (http://www.dictionary.com/browse/social-class). Social class has the greatest impact on who a person turns out to be and what decisions they make because those

This symbolizes that she knows that stealing is wrong but she is going to steal the money from her mother in order to help her father. "I looked out the window and saw only an ash-grey sky." Pg. 4. The author uses the describing term "ash-grey" to connect with the main character and her connection with her father. "In the coldness and stillness of the night,..." Pg. 4. This is the author showing that the cold is representing the fact that she knows stealing from her mother could tear her family apart even more she does it for the love and faith she has for her father. The dark sky symbolizes that she feels bad about taking the money but she has to choose between to very important things in her life, and she chooses to help her father by taking the

The American Dream ~ for many, it is the unlocked door that leads to happiness.  It is the hope for a future filled with success and fortune.  Although most people have a similar idea of what the American Dream is, they may have different ideas on how to achieve it.  For Willy Loman, a struggling salesman, achieving this dream would be a major accomplishment.  Unfortunately, his unusual ideas of how this dream can be achieved prevent him from reaching his goal.

To me the American Dream is something in the past, and it no longer applies to the present American society. The American Dream fueled our nation from the beginning. The American dream was in the mind of immigrants coming to America in search of a new and better life, a new beginning where you can start fresh and reinvent yourself and become successful. But now the Dream no longer exist in our nation, but it still exists in the mind of immigrants. America was a place where immigrants came to seek a brighter future not only for themselves but also for their children. The dream is still believed to exist by immigrants but their expectations are not met once they arrive here in the United States. The land of opportunity for everyone is now the land with opportunity for the few. So I personally do not believe that the “American Dream” still exists in this country, it is just a memory now.

The idea of graves representing memory is introduced in Part I of the collection within the poem “Graveyard Blues”. The final stanza of the poem says, “I wander now among the names of the dead: My mother’s name, stone pillow for my head” (8). First, while the word grave does not appear within this line, it is heavily implied by the speaker using her mother’s name as a stone pillow. The reader can deduce that this line is referring to a gravestone as when one thinks of a gravestone they usually picture an upright slab of rock with the name of the deceased engraved within it, and both of these elements are emphasized within this line. The main way that this line alludes to personal

The Valley Of Ashes is the poor working class part of the story where industrial workers work and are surrounded by smoke and ash covering their clothes. In contrast to New York The Valley Of Ashes is a dump where poor people live in New York you're surrounded by tall buildings and cars and business men in suits. "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 form 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). This quote shows perfectly how the valley was nothing compared to New York City.

In the beginning of the story, the readers can understand that is Ashes talking about her parents. Her mom is a practical person and always ready for anything, extra batteries for flashlights during a blackout or extra coins for laundry and her dad on the other hand, is an easygoing, carefree and willingness to help. In the story it says,“... All I can give you is dreams, Ashes. But one good dream is worth a thousand flashlight batteries.” This provides an explanation of how her dad can only give her dreams and nothing else. He called her a name that made her feel special, something her mom did not do, and her mom did not promise things she could not fulfill.

One of the most important symbol that Fitzgerald presents is the Valley of Ashes. Introduced in chapter 2, the valley of ashes is portrayed as a dreary piece of land brimming with utter despair. It completely contradicts with the “American Dream” and West Egg, where opportunities are ubiquitous. As Nick states, “This is a valley of

The author uses the Valley of Ashes, a small town between the West Egg and New York City, to symbolize the moral and social decay that stems from the desire to become wealthy. 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 symbolizes a morally stripped place where materialistic and false people can live in harmony. The unfortunate events that occur in the Valley of Ashes, including Gatsby's death, the affair between Tom and Myrtle and Myrtle's accidental death, represent the severe consequences stemming from the failed attempts at achieving the American Dream. As the characters travel through the Valley of Ashes to reach elsewhere, they are forced to belittle themselves to a lower social status, as seen when Tom engages in an affair with Myrtle, a poor-stricken woman, who solely provides another form of comfort. Serving as a symbol of social and moral destruction, the Valley of Ashes also symbolizes the condition in which the poorer American society lived during the 1920s. The description of the Valley of Ashes used through color symbolism, creates a melancholy atmosphere which allows the reader to connect the importance of the "desolate strip of land" to the negative personality changes, reflective of the 1920s, within the characters.

Park Avenue, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, is one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in all of New York City, home to the ultra rich, the top tier of the American upper class, the 1% (Park Avenue). Those who reside in Park Avenue not only have vast amounts of wealth, but an immense amount of influence that has turned the tables in their favor. But, if you go a couple of miles North of Park Avenue and cross the Harlem river, you arrive at the other side of Park Avenue or otherwise known as the Bronx, one of the poorest districts in all of New York (Park Avenue). Here you see the real hardships average Americans must voyage through in order to put food on the table and provide shelter for their families. 40% of the 700,000 residents who

To many people, the United States is more than just a country; it’s a place of ideals. To some, those ideals are liberty and freedom. To others, the American Dream is democracy and unity between all people. Many people, especially immigrants, see the many opportunities that America offers as its greatest ideal. House of Sand and Fog, by Andre Dubus III, focuses extensively on economic opportunity, telling the tale of former Iranian Colonel, Massoud Behrani. Behrani hopes to strike it rich in the real estate market with a home he bought, so he can work towards restoring his family’s honor. Sadly, his dreams fall flat and his entire family ends up dead. Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, by Jamie Ford, is about social opportunity America can offer. A young Chinese boy named Henry Lee becomes good friends with a Japanese girl named Keiko during World War II, despite that their people have long been enemies. When the government sends Keiko and her family away to an internment camp, Henry is separated from perhaps his only friend. Both House of Sand and Fog and Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet discuss the opportunities that America offers, and how sometimes these opportunities fail people.

The struggle for financial security and success has always been prominent in the American culture. The idea of the American dream captures the hearts of so many, yet leaves almost all of them enslaved in the endless economic struggle to achieve high status, wealth, and a house with a white picket fence. In Arthur Miller's, Death of a Salesman, we see how difficult it is for Willy Loman and his sons to achieve this so called American dream. In Lorraine Hansberry's, A Raisin in the Sun, she examines an African-American family's struggle to break out of the poverty that is preventing them from achieving some sort of financial stability, or in other words the American dream. Both plays explore the desire for wealth, driving forces that

If it is remembered that ashes circa the turn of the century often referred to garbage, then it is possible to interpret the "valley of ashes" as a "dumping ground." (23) The ash heaps, then, are piles of garbage, and the repeated references to "waste land," as opposed to "wasteland," now make more sense, as does George Wilson's use of "a piece of waste" to wipe his hands. (24-5) For Fitzgerald, the American dream is to get rich and become socially acceptable; Wilson, who has failed, has "wasted" his life, and is now "down in the dumps." He has been cast away by society, just like the rest of the refuse that surrounds him. This, then, seems to be the fate of middle-class dreams--despite being conceived in a land filled with opportunity, they all end up in the landfill.

Since the boy is the narrator, the inclusion of these symbolic images in the description of the setting shows that the boy is sensitive to the lack of spiritual beauty in his surroundings. Outside the main setting are images symbolic of those who don’t belong to the Church. The boy and his companions go there at times, behind their houses, along the "dark muddy lanes," to where the "rough tribes" (the infidel) dwell. Here odors arise from "the ash pits"--those images symbolic to James Joyce of the moral decay of his nation.

In part one 'The Burial of the dead', Eliot opens with a scene of isolation and desolation. 'April is the cruellest month…'which is an inversion of what spring represents, this being new life and hope. It is seen here as cruel because, for Marie, it stirs memories, which are no longer there and have led nowhere. He follows this image of isolation with an image of togetherness, 'Winter kept us warm, covering Earth in forgetful snow…' She recalls being free in the mountains, but freedom involves taking risks and she hesitates and goes 'south in the winter'. Marie's memories portray the shallowness of the aristocracy and in many ways we are reminded of the ladies in Prufrock who 'come and go talking of Michael Angelo'. There talking leads nowhere and so by implication their lives are meaningless and dead, as dead as the wasteland.