Throughout the book, Tom and Gatsby as characters are shown in contrast to each other, through the significance of the valley of ashes, the American dream, and their relationship to Daisy. One of the biggest parts of the book is the fact that Gatsby and the Buchanan's live on opposite sides of the bay, in west egg and east egg, respectively. But separating them on land is the Valley of Ashes. The Valley is described as being, “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…”(Fitzgerald, 26). It’s a place of hopelessness and poverty, and it illustrates how the American dream can never truly be achieved. Here are two men, Tom and Gatsby, who have seemingly …show more content…
The idea of the American dream is that you can start off with nothing and still become successful. Tom represents the end result of the dream, but not the getting there. He is rich, successful, happy, he has the mistress, and the girl, and in the end he still has the money and the girl. However, Tom didn’t work to get where he is. He was born into his family money, just like Daisy, and just like everyone is in West Egg. People like Gatsby look up to him as as something they want to become, but they don’t realize that they can’t become that. On the other hand, Gatsby represents the ‘getting there’ part of the American dream, but not the end result. He did indeed start from nothing, and climb the ladder of success, except he’s never quite able to reach the top. He is still not a part of the elite West Egg-ers, he still isn’t completely accepted into Tom and Daisy's society, and in the end he dies still believing that the American dream is waiting for him, just out of reach. Tom and Gatsby represent the impossibility of the American dream, each man showing that you can have half of it, but not