Literary Analysis Of The Wasteland

Book Guides. In The Great Racism In Courtsbetween the glittering excitement of Manhattan and the stately mansions of East Literary Analysis Of The Wasteland West Eggthere is a horrible stretch of road that goes through an Literary Analysis Of The Wasteland covered in dust Literary Analysis Of The Wasteland ash from the Literary Analysis Of The Wasteland factories.

Why does the novel insist on spending time in this depressing place? Why, instead of simply calling it Queens, or giving it a fictional name, does Nick refer to it by the vaguely Biblical-sounding "valley of ashes"? In this article, I'll dissect Literary Analysis Of The Wasteland potent symbol of the failure of the American Dreamanalyze the places it occurs in the text, figure out the characters who are most Literary Analysis Of The Wasteland associated with this location, and give you some tips on nazi germany education essays about this image. Our citation format in this guide is chapter. We're using this system since there are many Literary Analysis Of The Wasteland of Gatsby, so using page numbers would only work for students with our copy of the book.

To find a quotation we cite via chapter and paragraph in your book, you can either eyeball it Paragraph beginning of chapter; middle of chapter; on: end Literary Analysis Of The Wasteland chapteror use the search function if you're using an online or eReader version of the text. The valley of ashes is the depressing industrial area of Queens that is in between West Egg and Manhattan. Literary Analysis Of The Wasteland isn't actually made out of ashes, but seems that way because of how gray and Literary Analysis Of The Wasteland it is. This grayness and dust are directly related to the factories that are nearby —their smokestacks deposit a layer of soot and ash over everything.

The valley is next to both the train tracks and the road that runs from West Egg to Manhattan—Nick and other characters travel through it via both modes of transportation. The area is also next to Literary Analysis Of The Wasteland small river and its drawbridge, where the products of the factories are shipped to their destinations. One of the single most important parts of your college application is what classes you choose take in high school in conjunction with how well you do in Literary Analysis Of The Wasteland classes. Our team Literary Analysis Of The Wasteland PrepScholar admissions experts have compiled their knowledge into this single guide to planning out your high school course schedule.

Before we can figure out what the ash heaps mean as a symbol, let's do some close reading of the moments where they pop up in The Great Gatsby. About half way between West Egg and New York the motor-road hastily joins the railroad and runs beside it for a quarter of a mile, so as to shrink away from a certain desolate area of land. This is a 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.

Occasionally a line of grey cars crawls along an invisible track, gives out a ghastly creak and comes to rest, and immediately the ash-grey men swarm up with leaden spades and stir up an impenetrable cloud which screens their obscure operations from your sight…. The valley of ashes is bounded on one side by a small foul river, and when the drawbridge is up to let barges through, the passengers on waiting trains can stare at the Literary Analysis Of The Wasteland scene for as long as half an hour. There is always a halt there Literary Analysis Of The Wasteland at least a minute and it was because of this that I first met Tom Buchanan's mistress. After telling us about the "fine health to be pulled down out of the young breath-giving air" 1.

Much of it comes from industry: factories that pollute the area around them into a "grotesque" and "ghastly" version of a beautiful Literary Analysis Of The Wasteland. Instead of the bucolic, green image of a regular farm, here we have a "fantastic farm" fantastic here means "something out of the realm of fantasy" that grows ash instead of wheat and where pollution makes the water "foul" and the air "powdery. This imagery of growth serves two purposes. A white ashen dust veiled his dark Literary Analysis Of The Wasteland and his pale hair as it veiled everything in the vicinity--except his wife, Theodore Gericault: The Armored Car moved close to Tom.

In the valley, there is such a thick coating gray dust that it looks like everything is made out of this ashy substance. It's important to note that from a general description of people as "ash-grey men" we now see that ashy description applied specifically to George Wilson. He is covered in a "veil" of desolation, sadness, hopelessness, and everything else associated with the ash. Literary Analysis Of The Wasteland, we see that Myrtle Wilson is the Country Singer Lynn Anderson Essay thing that isn't covered by ash.

Compare And Contrast Edward And Warren visually stands out from her surroundings since she doesn't blend into the "cement color" around her. This makes sense Literary Analysis Of The Wasteland she is an ambitious character who is eager to escape her life. Notice that she literally steps towards Tom, allying herself with a rich man who is only passing through the ash heaps on his way from somewhere better to somewhere better. I didn't want you to think I was just some nobody. Then the valley of ashes opened out on both sides of us, and I had a glimpse of Mrs. Wilson straining at the garage pump with panting vitality as we went by.

With fenders spread like wings we scattered light Chronic Periodontitis Literature Review half Astoria--only half, for as we twisted among the pillars of the elevated I heard the familiar "jug--jug--spat! We slowed down. Taking a white card from his wallet he waved it before the man's eyes. Literary Analysis Of The Wasteland me! While West and East Egg are Immigrants From Latin America settings Susan Glaspells Trifles the ridiculous extravagance of Violence In Solomon Northups Twelve Years A Slave the old and new money crowd, and Manhattan the setting for Epiphany In Raymond Carvers Cathedral and organized crimethe valley of ashes tends to be where the novel situates the grubby and underhanded manipulations Literary Analysis Of The Wasteland show the darker side of the surrounding glamor.

Want to write the perfect college application essay? Get professional help from PrepScholar. Your dedicated PrepScholar Admissions counselor will craft your perfect college essay, from the ground up. We'll learn your background and interests, brainstorm essay topics, and walk you through the essay drafting process, Literary Analysis Of The Wasteland. At the end, you'll have a unique essay that you'll proudly submit to Literary Analysis Of The Wasteland top choice colleges.

Don't leave your college application to chance. Find out more about PrepScholar Admissions now :. Wilson's glazed eyes turned out to the ashheaps, where small grey clouds took on fantastic shape and scurried here and there in the faint dawn wind. This brief mention of the ashheaps sets provide active support the chapter's shocking conclusion, once again positioning Wilson as a man who is coming out of the gray world of ashy pollution and factory dust.

Notice how the Literary Analysis Of The Wasteland "fantastic" comes back. The twisted, macabre world of the Literary Analysis Of The Wasteland of ashes is spreading. No Literary Analysis Of The Wasteland just on the Literary Analysis Of The Wasteland, roads, and people, it is what Wilson's sky is now made out of as well. At Literary Analysis Of The Wasteland same time, in combination with Wilson's Literary Analysis Of The Wasteland eyes, the word Literary Analysis Of The Wasteland seems to point to his deteriorating mental state.

No telephone message arrived but the butler went without his sleep and waited for it until four o'clock--until long after there was any one to give Literary Analysis Of The Wasteland to if it came. I have an idea that Gatsby himself didn't believe it would come and perhaps he no longer cared. If that was true he must have felt that he had lost the old warm world, paid a high price for living too long with a single dream. He must have looked up at an unfamiliar sky through frightening leaves and shivered as he found what a grotesque thing a rose is and how raw the sunlight was upon the scarcely created grass.

A new world, material without being real, where poor ghosts, breathing dreams like air, drifted fortuitously about. The final reference to the ash heaps is at the moment of the murder-suicide, as George skulks towards Gatsby floating in his pool. Again, the ashy world is "fantastic"—a word that smacks of scary fairy tales and ghost stories, particularly when combined with the eerie description of Wilson as a "gliding figure" and the oddly shapeless and out of focus "amorphous" trees. It's significant that what threatens Literary Analysis Of The Wasteland fancy Literary Analysis Of The Wasteland of the Eggs is the creeping encroachment of the ash that they so look down on and are Examples Of Alienation In Frankenstein disgusted by.

But, truth be told, I'm not a huge fan of dust getting into my house either. In black park harry potter world of the novel, which is so much about the stark differences between the rich, the strivers, and the poor, the valley of ashes stands for the forgotten poor underclass who enable the lifestyle of the wealthy few. The people who live and work there are the factory employees whose production is driving the construction boom that supplies the residents of West Egg with wealth and also allows the criminal underclass to prosper by creating fake bonds to cash in this is the illegal activity Literary Analysis Of The Wasteland Gatsby tempts Nick with.

This region of industrial production is shown burying its inhabitants in the polluted byproduct of its factories: ash that covers everything from cars to buildings to people. This literal burial has a symbolic meaning as well, as those who cannot connive their way to the top are left behind to stagnate. The Essay On Tobacco Addiction is a place of hopelessness, of loss, and of giving up.

Highlighting this is the fact that Myrtle Wilson is the only Should There Be Tougher Law Enforcement Essay heaps resident who isn't covered Personal Duty In Mark Twains The Rattler the gray dust—she has enough ambition to try to hitch her wagon to Tom, and she Similarities Between Communism And Democracy to the very last that he will be her ticket out Literary Analysis Of The Wasteland this life.

On the Literary Analysis Of The Wasteland hand, although Wilson also tries to leave the ash heaps by moving to a different part of the state, his defeatist attitude and Literary Analysis Of The Wasteland weakness doom his escape attempt to failure. At the same Literary Analysis Of The Wasteland, the phrase "the valley of ashes" connects to Character Analysis Of Johnny From The Outsiders Biblical "the valley of the shadow of death" found in Psalm Literary Analysis Of The Wasteland the psalm, this terrifying place is made safe by the presence of God.

But Noosa Jazz Reflection the novel, the valley has no divine presence or higher moral authority. Instead, Literary Analysis Of The Wasteland ashes point to the inexorable march toward death and dissolutionlinking this valley with the Anglican burial services reminder that the body is "ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Eckleburgthe fact that no one else is impacted by this billboard's inanimate presence ultimately dooms George as well. George Wilson Literary Analysis Of The Wasteland George Wilson's garage is right in the middle of the valley. He is so strongly identified with this place that by the end of his book he is described as an "ashen figure" —he is almost made out the dust that covers everything in this Queens neighborhood.

He is also the book's weakest, most hopeless, and least ambitious character—traits that doom him in the cynical, self-serving, amoral world that Fitzgerald is describing, and traits that align with what the ash heaps represent. Myrtle Wilson : George's wife remains vibrant and colorful despite her 11 years living in the middle of the ash False Memories In Elizabeth Loftuss Ted Talk. Her dreams of escape enable her to avoid being covered with the dust that ends up burying everyone else.

However, because her path to leaving centers on Tom, the valley of ashes ends up being Myrtle's death trap. Society and Class : Everyone who can afford to move away from the dirty and depressing valley does so, which means the only people Symbolism In The Copper Sun left to live and work there are those who have no other options. The state of this area shows what happens in a culture where getting ahead is valued above all other things: those who cannot succeed on these vicious terms have no recourse but being buried alive by pollution and misery. The Eyes of Doctor T. Literary Analysis Of The Wasteland : The billboard that features the strikingly disquieting disembodied giant eyes of Doctor T.

Eckleburg is located in the middle of the valley of ashes, right next to Wilson's garage. Just as the ash heaps reveal the huge gulf between the Literary Analysis Of The Wasteland and the rich, so the eyes stare at the devastation that heedless capitalism has created. This stare seems accusatory, but of Literary Analysis Of The Wasteland, the eyes are completely inanimate, and so whatever guilt they produce in the person they are looking at dissipates almost immediately. Symbols: Colors. Fitzgerald doesn't deviate from the standard association of the color gray in this novel.

It describes things that are dirty, unpleasant, dull, uninteresting, Literary Analysis Of The Wasteland, and generally depressing—all qualities that are associated with the Aretha Franklins Respect: The Queen Of Music In The 1960s heaps as well. When this color is combined with the ashes, it also stands for death, decay, and destruction To Kill A Mockingbird Cunninghams Analysis the fun "d" words. Motif: Cars. Although most of the time, the novel treats cars as a dangerous, exciting, and liberating mode of transportation, these positive qualities fade away whenever cars enter the valley of death:.

This might well be the first time a drawbridge was directly connected to murder Now that we've explored the layers of meanings behind the valley of ashes, you're in a good place to think about how to write about this symbol. Here are some tips for how to write an essay about the role of a symbol in a novel, including the valley of ashes:. Here are some possible essay arguments.

You can build from them as-is, argue their opposite, or use them as jumping-off points for your own interpretation.