The Valley of Ashes

We are quickly introduced to a further setting in chapter two called the Valley of Ashes. Lying halfway between the eggs and New York itself, the Valley of Ashes symbolises the ‘edge’ of society.

The Valley of Ashes The Valley of Ashes between West Egg and New York City consists of a long stretch of desolate land created by the dumping of industrial ashes.

The Valley of Ashes Represents a kind of purgatory – a place in limbo It also symbolises the shameful underbelly of American capitalism. This is a dumping ground of all of the waste from the elaborate lifestyles of people like the Buchanans and Gatsby. The UGLY BY-PRODUCT of CONSUMERISM. The men who work there are devoid of colour, working ceaselessly to maintain the lifestyle of the Buchanans, who don’t seem to work at all.

The Valley of Ashes It represents the moral and social decay that results from the uninhibited pursuit of wealth, as the rich indulge themselves with regard for nothing but their own pleasure. It symbolises the moral decay and ugliness hidden beneath the surface of the glamorously wealthy.

The Valley of Ashes The Valley of Ashes also symbolizes the plight of the poor, like George Wilson, who live among the dirty ashes and lose their vitality as a result.

Language in Fitzgerald’s descriptions

“…a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat…grotesque gardens.” “wheat” and “gardens” are associated with life and nature. “Ashes” are dead and depressing. Combining the two shows that beauty has been destroyed.

“…where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and finally...” The use of the LIST emphasizes the scale of the decay. REPETITION of “and” slows the pace down and symbolises the trudging drudgery of life in the valley.

“A white ashen dust veiled his dark suit…as it veiled everything…except his wife…” The presence of the “ashen dust” coated everything in grey – the colour of death and decay. Myrtle escapes this. She is not part of the decay – she is trying to rise above it.

“A line of grey cars crawls along an invisible track… immediately the ash-grey men swarm up with leaden spades and stir up an impenetrable cloud, which screens their obscure operations from your sight.” This perhaps represents the idea that this section of society is deliberate hidden from view (notice how the train curls away from the Valley, as if it ‘shrinks away’ from having to confront it.) In modern industrial society, the polarisation between the haves and have-nots, between the slaves and the masters, grows ever stronger. By repeating images of greyness, obscuring cloud and blindness, Fitzgerald emphasises the tendency of the privileged to casually ‘overlook’ the reality of hellholes such as these.

Ash has a traditionally negative association with decay/waste/dirt – think of crematoriums, ‘ashes to ashes dust to dust’, cigarette trays. The ash-grey men at work in this place symbolise the downtrodden working class chained forever to industry and monotony. They move ‘dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air;. Living out a mere half-life, a million miles from the splendour and indulgence of the Buchanans’ environment.

The Eyes of Dr T.J. Eckleberg …above the grey land and the spasms of bleak dust which drift endlessly over it, you perceive, after a moment, the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleberg…[his] eyes…are blue and gigantic – their retinas are one yard high. They look out of no face, but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a non-existent nose…his eyes, dimmed a little by many paintless days, under sun and rain, brood on over the solemn dumping group.

The Eyes of Dr T. J. Eckleberg Reminds us – by its sheer size and the incongruity of its surroundings – of the importance and influence of advertising in modern culture. These eyes have no natural place on the hillside, and yet they dominate the landscape, being its most prominent feature. Fitzgerald has deliberately chosen an advert for optometry in order to point out the modern man’s inability to see the corruption of our society and environment. This lack of vision applies to all of the characters in the book, each of all fail to ‘see’ the basic futility of their hopes and dreams. The billboard shows how consumerism and materialism has taken the place of traditional spiritual values.

The Eyes of Dr T. J. Eckleberg They may represent God staring down upon and judging American society as a moral wasteland, though the novel never makes this point explicitly. Instead, throughout the novel, Fitzgerald suggests that symbols only have meaning because characters instil them with meaning. The connection between the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg and God exists only in George Wilson’s grief- stricken mind.