5th June 2018

The valley of ashes is a setting in the Great Gatsby that illustrates the failure part of The American Dream. The American Dream is the dream where everyone has equal opportunities and that hard work pays off. The valley of ashes is the failure as these people work so hard but they gain nothing out of it ad stay in the slumps of the valley. They cannot escape the valley. A quote from the book when the Valley of Ashes is first described is when nick and tom are heading to New york. Nick says “a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens. The phrase fantastic farm i think means that is a farm is successful when everyone puts their hard work into it. This relates to the Valley of Ashes as everyone is putting their best efforts into their work. He also says that it is a grotesque garden. He definition of grotesque is very ugly, or distorted. This tells us about the valley of ashes as a very poor place that economy is going bad. Because of this it will be a very ugly looking place compared to East egg or West egg which is a high economical place that is wealth. It will look fancy and new. Another quote that the valley of ashes is referenced in is “”But above the gray land and the spasm of bleak dust which drift endlessly over it”. This displays to us that the valley of ashes is under the grey cloud that blocks the valley of ashes from the outside world. Its blocking the people like wilson from escaping the poor neighborhood they live in.

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