The hope for happiness,the desire of a luxurious life,the prosperity of wealth and fame drag people into the illusion of the American dream.In Great Gatsby by F.Scott Fitzgerald it conveys the truth behind the fantasy that the poeple of the 1920’s get trapped in, on their pursuit of the dream.Fitzgerald has effectivley used the setting to demonstrate his ideas about society in that time.Through his use of lavish settings to areas of extreme poverty,he makes a statment of wealth and greed in the minds of people in the 1920’s and the corruption that comes with it.
The so called American Dream is the hope that anyone no matter where you live or what job you have can earn sucess if they work hard enough.This is a pretty false reality of what the american dream acutally is.Through the use of setting West Egg it shows the american dream isnt possible without some sort of corruption.In the book Nick talks about West Egg as ” I lived at west egg, the well,the less fashionable of the two, though this is a most superficial tag to express the bizzare and not little sister contrast between them”. We learn from this quote that East Eggers look down on West Eggers.Although they are both very wealthy suburbs the West Eggers are less fashionable because they have earned there money through corruption such as bootlegging and are looked down on because they werent born into money.Another quote that helps us see this is when Tom accuses “Everyone is west egg is a bootlegger”.This proves that the American Dream is a false reality and instead of just working hard west eggers have achieved the american dream in corrupt and illegal ways.This shows another side to the so callled American dream that not everybody who is in a lower class can achieve the dream in a honest way.
Another side to the American Dream is the East Eggers.East egg is old money people who live there have been born into money,inherited it all and havent had to work hard for their wealth or the so called American Dream.This shows another false reality of the dream because they dont have to work hard at all for their money.In this quote “across the courtesy bay the white palaces of fashionable east egg glittered along the water” it is describing the perfection and extravagance of the people in East Egg.Tom and Daisy Buchannan live in East egg.It is shown in the book that Tom thinks very highly of himself is quite snobby and looks down on people that dont live in East Egg.This describes how the poeple of East egg live.They think of themselves very highly and havent had to work for anything they really want in their lives before.Another quote that describes the type of people East eggers are is when Tom says ‘Oh i’ll stay in the east,don’t you worry,he said,glancing at daisy and then back at me as if he were alert for something more.id be a goddamn fool to live anywhere else.”East egg is presented as the false representation of the american dream these people have been born into the dream. They have done nothing to achieve this success and have been given the opportunity that most people do not get. Tom is from a wealthy family and was born into it, he has done nothing to get their he has just keep his high status. This is described as old money.
The Valley of Ashes is a extremley poor place.The people who live there work so hard on the daily but dont get rewarded with anything.They are trapped there on their pursuit of the dream they carry hope with them every day but they will never be able to achieve the dream.No matter how hard they work and how much effort they put in they are just trapped in a cycle.In this quote “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.”This description shows us that it is some kind of huge dumping ground where the poor live, the ashes are compared to wheat, the houses and even the people appeared to be made of ash.The people who live here have no real excitment or anything happy in their lives, as the reference to them ‘crumbling’. However, the Valley of Ashes does not only represent poverty, it can also be said to symbolize the corruption of society as a whole. Wealth in this novel is generally shown to be based around materialism and greed and not anything truly fulfilling, leading to problems in society and also in the people.
In conclusion all three of these settings each symbolize a different reality of the American dream to show the lack of equality and the social injustises.Fitzgerald used setting in a very clever way to show the innacurate version of the so called “American Dream”
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