Land Symbolism In The Great Gatsby

The 1920s was a period of lavish lifestyles where the rich got richer, while everyone else struggled to keep themselves going. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, displays the luxurious lives of the main characters in comparison to those who were not at the top of society. Fitzgerald uses the land masses of East Egg and West Egg, a billboard that appears to be always watching, and a desolate stretch of land to symbolize the theme and drive the plot of the story. One of the most important symbols in the novel is the fictional land masses of East and West Egg. A bay separates the two land masses, as Fitzgerald writes, “Across the courtesy bay the white palaces of fashionable East Egg glittered along the water.” (Fitzgerald 10). The “old wealth,” or those who acquired their wealth decades earlier, reside in East Egg, and the nouveau riche, or newly

T.J. Eckleberg. This billboard looks over the gray land between West Egg and New York. It sets a gloomy mood for everyone who passes. Fitzgerald describes the billboard when he writes, “The (eyes) look out of no face...But his eyes, dimmed a little by many paintless days under sun and rain, brood on over the solemn dumping ground.” (27-28). Fitzgerald uses the billboard to symbolize the meaninglessness of society. The billboard is run down and dreary, similar to the society of those who were not affluent enough to indulge in the materialism and extravagance of the 1920s. People of this time were either working hard or hardly working, and it turns out that the rich were hardly working, since they were so wealthy. The maintenance of the billboard has been neglected, which is why it looks so solemn. The “maintenance” of society also seems to be forgotten about, so the 20s was not a prosperous time for those who could not flaunt their money. This is how Fitzgerald ties in the eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleberg as a symbol to influence the