Gatsby's house & West Egg
Gatsby's house serves as a key symbol of aspiration, reflecting both Gatsby's success as an American self-made man and the mirage of an identity he has created to win Daisy's love.
Gatsby follows his 'American dream' as he buys the house to be across the bay from Daisy and has parties to gain widespread recognition to impress her. “I believe that on the first night I went to Gatsby's house I was one of the few guests who had actually been invited. People were not invited - they went there.” Gatsby tries to fit in with the 'old money' of West Egg. He does this by trying to show wealth through the use of the colour gold. Gatsby's parties include “yellow cocktail music”, his food (turkeys) are “bewitched to dark gold” and he drives a yellow car. An owl-eyed man at a Gatsby party sits in awe in the library, murmuring with amazement that all the books on Gatsby’s shelves are "real books." The use of books show that Gatsby is a fraud, he has built up an image of himself that is not consistent with his upbringing. Gatsby wants people to believe he is a well-educated man and having an abundant library helps him achieve this. The owl-eyed man compares Gatsby's mansion to a house of cards, muttering “that if one brick was removed the whole library was liable to collapse”. Ultimately, an inevitable collapse occurs, as Gatsby loses Daisy and dies friendless (with the exception of Nick), prompting Nick to refer to Gatsby's mansion as “that huge incoherent failure of a house” The Valley of Ashes
The Valley of Ashes is a midway stop between West Egg and New York City described as a “fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens, where ashes take the form 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 depiction, in conjunction with several key turning points which occur at this location, recall the moral wilderness of T S Eliot's poem The Wasteland. It is in the Valley of Ashes where Tom has his affair with Myrtle, where Daisy kills Myrtle with Gatsby's car, and where George Wilson decides to murder Gatsby. This location is presented in the opening of Chapter 2, among other places. The Valley of ashes is also home to the billboard with the eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg. These gigantic blue eyes (without a face) look out at the valley of ashes from behind a pair of yellow glasses. These are the all-seeing eyes and George Wilson refers to them as “God” when he confronts Myrtle about her affair. “God knows what you've been doing, everything you've been doing. You may fool me but you can't food God...God sees everything!” The Valley of Ashes highlights the failure of the American dream. It gives the audience insight into people's lives who live below the elite (West and East Egg people). |
Daisy's house & East Egg
New York
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