Halfway between West Egg and New York lies the ‘valley of ashes’ and this is the ‘desolate’ wasteland, which is also home to the Wilson family. The term ‘desolate’ is used to describe a place that is depressingly empty and solitary. Fitzgerald includes this ‘fantastic farm’ to emphasize to the readers, the sharp contrast between luxury and health with poverty and struggle. The valley serves to represent the damage that the upper class characters such as Daisy and Tom can inflict on society.
Through the Wilson family, we get the impression that this is a place where the victims of the American Dream reside and is home to those who have very little to look forward to in the future and have very little going on in their lives. Unlike New York, this barren site lacks extravagance and …show more content…
It is the complete opposite of life in the West Egg and in New York. Transferred epithet as well as personification is used when describing the movement of the cars. It is said that even the cars ‘crawl’ and once again, this stresses to the readers the emptiness in the valley. Up until this juncture, Fitzgerald uses cars as a symbol of power and along with power tends to co me wealth. For all the wealthy characters in the novel such as Gatsby and the Buchanan, a car comes along with the lavish lifestyles they lead, but if you compare this to the Wilsons, they fix cars just in order to make a living. It’s as if to those that live in New York, it’s just a good time but for those in the valley of ashes, this is what they call life. It is evident that everything here is devalued and mounts to nothing in New