The Ashes

describes the Valley to be “a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens”, the imagery of dust and ashes recalls death, which also foreshadows the outcome of the novel. The people, like the Wilsons, who are forced to live and work in the Valley, inhabit a sort of living death, they are zombie-like people who are chasing the American Dream, all of its residents desperately want to leave but cannot. ‘Ashes’ also carries connotations of regret and…

The reality for the people of the Valley of Ashes is that they will not be able to achieve their American dream. They lack the green within their city, which is the wealth necessary in order to do so. The most notable time in which the reality is truly present is when the eyes of God are described when Fitzgerald illustrates God’s glasses when stating the he had a “pair of enormous yellow spectacles” (23), which look out unto the Valley of Ashes. These yellow spectacles represent the reality…

things that are not stated outright. There are several recurring themes in this book like wealth, geography and most notoriously colour. Fitzgerald uses colour to enhance the symbolism of the people and places in the novel. Places like the valley of ashes, West and East Egg, and New York, as well as the characters such as Daisy, Jordan, Tom, Myrtle and Gatsby, are associated with colour symbolically.…

popularity as more people want to keep their loved ones close to them. Many people choose to do this by having an object created from their loved ones ashes. One of the first people to patent objects made with cremation ashes was Albert Vanderlaan. His main idea was that “men of genius” (Vanderlaan 1927:1) could be memorialized with plaques mixed with their own ashes and be remembered forever instead of wasting away in a cemetery with a headstone that would weather until no one could read it.…

Like his friend Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald spent the majority of the 1920s travelling through Europe. Though these excursions likely influenced his writing, Fitzgerald set The Great Gatsby in New York. The United States has long been thought of as the “Land of Opportunity” where anything is possible. New York is central to this idea of the American Dream; it’s a place where people move to make their dreams come true. Today, the novel is studied in myriad of literature classes and…

where society develops immoral values in order to achieve their prolonged American Dream; eventually it turns into one big lie Scott Fitzgerald never believed that the American Dream blended into society rightly. “This is a valley of ashes — a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and…

begins to learn that his father was only human and did the best he could with what he had or knew. Forgiveness of his father and the renewed friendship with Thomas takes place when Victor splits Arnold’s ashes and calls him “our father”. In the last scene, as Victor began to dump his father’s ashes into the water, a poem is recited by Thomas. Through this scene the rawness of Victors emotions are displayed. Victor collapses on the bridge into a fetal position regressing to something umbilical.…

The Great Gatsby is a classic novel that was written in the year 1925 by the author F. Scott Fitzgerald. F. Scott Fitzgerald was an American writter that was born September 24th, 1896. He is known to be one of the greatest American novelists in the 20th century. In his time, he was able to finish 4 novels. One his most notable works is The Great Gatsby. This novel was first published in April of 1925 and did not have a very good start. However, during World War II the book made a comeback, and…

childhood friend Thomas Builds-The-Fire, our protagonist Victor embarks on a journey to Phoenix, AZ to retrieve the ashes of his estranged father. However it is Victor that will rise from the ashes, and be reborn from the flames of his own suffering and pain, like the Phoenix. In Sherman Alexie’s “This Is What It Means To Say Phoenix, Arizona,” Alexie intentionally uses symbols such as fire, ashes, and “Phoenix” to demonstrate Victor’s, journey of finding himself after his father’s death.…

who idolize it will find themselves destroyed by it. Fitzgerald uses ashes and dust to symbolize how the American Dream leaves behind desolation and those who strive for it while trying to escape their own lives will ultimately find themselves smothered by it. In his novel Fitzgerald demonstrates that the American Dream, for all its splendor and grandeur leaves behind desolation in its wake; Fitzgerald uses the Valley of Ashes to…