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Caraway's Use Of Materialism In The Great Gatsby

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Another modernist writer portrays the same ideas in his work, The Great Gatsby. In it, the characters lack a relationship with nature, leading to immense emptiness. Fitzgerald uses Nick Caraway to describe the society. Their society does not grow fresh produce or life like typical grasslands or farms do, it grows ashes and death: 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. (27). Fitzgerald uses Nick Caraway to show how their city is a valley of ashes where even farms are unnaturally growing death, …show more content…

There is also fantastic or unreal imagery in the way the author uses Nick to describe everything being a formation of ashes, even men. The word “transcendent” refers to something surpassing human experience, or more precisely, related to the Supreme Being and is not limited by the materialistic universe. Fitzgerald’s use of this word is ironic because the people in The Great Gatsby are not able to see past the materialistic universe. They do not progress in life. They do not put in “a transcendent effort” to gain anything in their lives, which they live devoted to materialism and gaudiness. There is also a use of dust and blurriness imagery. Fitzgerald uses words like “dimly”, “crumbling”, and “powdery” to show that nothing is tangibly solid or full of light. If the air is “powdery”, one cannot see through it. This unclear vision imagery alludes to the ability of the characters in this novel to see the wonder of life. The society overall could not care less about the natural greenery or the “fresh green breast of the new world” (189) around them. Only towards the end of the novel, does Nick realize that nature carries a nurturing and motherly significance. He uses the word “fresh” to describe the originally untouched state of nature before it is

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