The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a book about wealth, image, and love. It is a reflection of the pursuit of happiness in America’s Gilded Era while dealing with corruption in the American dream. This book starts with the golden outer layer of the 1920’s, but it slowly shifts to a book full of deceit, immortality, and destruction. Here, we meet Jay Gatsby, a man draped in mystery and challenge, whose main focus and dream is the relentless pursuit of love and what is considered the “American Dream”. Through his eyes, Fitzgerald dives us into a world where wealth is alluring and exploitive, love is fragile, and where there are consequences of living life built on this illusion. In Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, he uses elements of object symbolism, weather, and color to show that dreams are ultimately …show more content…
He says, “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. of men who move dimly and are already crumbling through the powdery air,” (Fitzgerald 23) to show how the wish for money and wealth is just destructive. He includes the fact that the hard-working men are “crumbling” and move “dimly” which means they are tired of this. They are tired of having to fight and work 24/7 in the dirt and grime of the Valley of Ashes, while people like Gatsby and Daisy have it handed to them. The gray color of the Valley of Ashes illustrates the destructive nature of dreams by showing the aftermath of the work and ash on the men trying to make a life for themselves. Another color used is the blue color of the eyes of the T. J. Eckleburg billboard overlooking the Valley of Ashes to describe someone always watching. Fitzgerald uses the quote, “The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg are blue and gigantic—their retinas are one yard