Valley Of Ashes Symbolism In The Great Gatsby

The author uses very descriptive imagery to illustrate, in our minds, how the Valley of Ashes looks like. He also uses personification, "a line of gray cars crawls..", including a simile, "where ashes grow like wheat." Nick tells us about a stretch of land lying a quarter of a mile between West Egg and New York which are connected by a motor road and a railroad, called the Valley of Ashes. The valley of ashes is basically the midpoint, being a colorless, desolate area of land. In fact, the somber place is home to the people who the higher class of the city tend to overlook. The novel's non-wealthy people live in the valley of ashes, which men work here by shoveling the ashes. This subdued landscape is filled with missed opportunities contrary

    Fitzgerald employs this section on the valley of ashes and Dr. T.J.Eckleburg?s billboard to criticize American society and values.  He is portraying the American habit of using up what is useful or has value and leaving the waste products behind.  His symbol is that the wood (valuable) was used to build a fire and then the ashes (waste products) were left behind.  The valley of ashes was once a flourishing town, but was used until it was no longer valuable and was thus abandoned (like ashes after all the wood has been burned).  Gatsby?s parties were also a form of social commentary in Fitzgerald?s The Great Gatsby.  Gatsby?s acquisition and disposal of fruit (and rinds) in such large quantities is another example of society?s using up the serviceable and leaving the superfluous behind.  The actions of Tom and Daisy also illustrate this tendency to ignore the waste products and obstacles.  ? . . . Daisy accidentally runs down and kills Myrtle Wilson.  Completely unnerved, Daisy speeds away . . . ?they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their wealth or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made . . .?? (Gallo 36-44)

One of the first symbols Fitzgerald use is The Valley of Ashes “This is a valley of ashe’s a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes take farms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and, finally with transcendent effort of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air” (Fitzgerald 23). The Valley of Ashes is described in such great detail because it shows how beauty can be destroyed by greed. “Fitzgerald’s valley of ashes has been frequently compared to Eliot’s “Waste Land,” but the difference are more instructive than the similarities. Eliot’s waste and land is not, in terms of its imagery and mythology specifically Christian”(Elmore 433). The Valley of Ashes is a dead land that has a board over it that looks as if it is the eyes of God that sees all things.

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 Valley of Ashes is halfway between West Egg of Long Island and New York City. When one comes upon the Valley of Ashes, it is not what they see, but what they do not see: sunshine, colors, or a settling feeling. The Valley of Ashes is nothing but a dull location, filled with unsatisfied farmers, unsuccessful gardens, billowing smoke, and mounds of ashes that are prominent below the gray skies. Nick Carraway, the narrator of The Great Gatsby, describes the Valley of Ashes as “...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” (Fitzgerald 23). Fitzgerald describes this location as unpleasant for those who enter and it is seen as a vulnerable place due to the billboard of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg looking upon the location at all times. This descriptive quote foreshadows that something bad will occur in this area during the novel.

The purpose of the landfill was to bury the large amount of contaminated the soil with toxic Polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB), a class of chemicals so toxic that Congress banned production later. The whole story began in 1973 when Ward PCB Transformers Company dumped more than 30,000 gallons of PCB-contaminated oil on the side of state roads in 14 North Carolina counties. The trucker, who was responsible for taking the oil to a facility to be recycled, disposed of it discreetly and illegally. The person in charge of the company and the trucker was sent to jail for a short time for their negligence on the matter. Contaminants left in the truck and factory was detoxified. However, the area around the factory as well as the lakes and rivers close to the road had been polluted. As a result, more than 60,000 tons of oils were polluted with toxic PCB.

It could be interpreted that Scott Fitzgerald had used the valley of ashes to foreshadows future events in the novel, which conclude with other people (Gatsby and Mr Wilson) having to deal with the effects caused by the rich (Tom and Daisy Buchanan).

He also connects the color yellow, on Doctor T.J. Eckleburg’s glasses, with the greed and wealth of the characters.

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

In contrast to the beginning of chapter two, chapter one concluded with the mysterious Gatsby staring at the stars in a hopeful manner. As chapter two begins with a description of the Valley of Ashes, the evident contrast allows the reader to understand the different type of people who existed at the time. The wasteland, which separates the Eggs from New York City, consists of those who are overlooked by the sophisticated and wealthy people who belong to the Eggs and the

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

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.

The sentence ‘the motor road hastily joins… land’ suggests the Valley of ashes is is home to the sorts of people the wealthy are content to overlook. This can also be seen : ‘men swarm up’, likening people to insects, implying they are

A first look at the poem is not enough to understand what it is about and although it might seem hard to be understood or even ambiguous, it is important first to understand the historical background in order to decipher it. Semy Rhee argues that ’’one of the prominent elements in The Waste Land that makes the poem difficult to understand is the historical references and allusions to other literary works. The