The Great Gatsby (Symbolism)
THE GREAT GATSBY
In his most fully realized artistic achievement, Fitzgerald creates a rich pattern of evocative language and some equally provocative symbols to carry the weight and meaning of his ideas. In this presentation I will be showing how three of these symbols are used to represent what Fitzgerald views as the most pressing problem of his society; the dangerous reality of pursuing dreams obsessively. I will be looking primarily at the valley of ashes, T K Eckleburg and the green light as symbols which reinforce Fitzgerald’s warning about the obsession with materialistic concerns.
The first of these symbols is the valley of ashes. The novel’s geographical symbol carries a huge importance throughout the novel. Fitzgerald in this novel brings out this idea about a land that lies between the west egg and New York known as the valley of ashes, a place where ashes grow like wheat. This piece of land is considered so disgusting that no one wants to come close to it. Even the trains try to pass away from this gray land quickly keeping as much of a distance as possible. Nick describes this as a wasteland, a physical desert which symbolizes spiritual desolation and moral degradation created by money hungry people. The people living in the valley move dimly and are already crumbling. Fitzgerald clearly tells us that these men have no significance; they are spiritually lost and are already dead and in some ways made up of the ashes that grow in this valley. These people try desperately to get out of this valley, the two best example of this desperation are Mr. Wilson, who seems so blinded by the idea of buying tom’s car to make some that he seems ready to ignores his wife’s affair and the second person is myrtle herself who is desperate to get out of the valley that she is ready to even take blows from tom just to escape her reality by entering the world of luxury products and pursuing the idea of her belonging to the leisure class. These people worship money
In his most fully realized artistic achievement, Fitzgerald creates a rich pattern of evocative language and some equally provocative symbols to carry the weight and meaning of his ideas. In this presentation I will be showing how three of these symbols are used to represent what Fitzgerald views as the most pressing problem of his society; the dangerous reality of pursuing dreams obsessively. I will be looking primarily at the valley of ashes, T K Eckleburg and the green light as symbols which reinforce Fitzgerald’s warning about the obsession with materialistic concerns.
The first of these symbols is the valley of ashes. The novel’s geographical symbol carries a huge importance throughout the novel. Fitzgerald in this novel brings out this idea about a land that lies between the west egg and New York known as the valley of ashes, a place where ashes grow like wheat. This piece of land is considered so disgusting that no one wants to come close to it. Even the trains try to pass away from this gray land quickly keeping as much of a distance as possible. Nick describes this as a wasteland, a physical desert which symbolizes spiritual desolation and moral degradation created by money hungry people. The people living in the valley move dimly and are already crumbling. Fitzgerald clearly tells us that these men have no significance; they are spiritually lost and are already dead and in some ways made up of the ashes that grow in this valley. These people try desperately to get out of this valley, the two best example of this desperation are Mr. Wilson, who seems so blinded by the idea of buying tom’s car to make some that he seems ready to ignores his wife’s affair and the second person is myrtle herself who is desperate to get out of the valley that she is ready to even take blows from tom just to escape her reality by entering the world of luxury products and pursuing the idea of her belonging to the leisure class. These people worship money