22nd June 2017

Essay practice

False, failed and corrupt, no one can really live the real “American Dream”. The novel, “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald, shows all types of the “American Dream” except for the real one. In this piece I will explain to you how 3 settings all create the illusion of a different type of American Dream involved within the setting.

Throughout the novel, the Valley of Ashes represents the failure of the American Dream. The Valley of Ashes is a small community in between West and East Egg and New York City. It is known as the lower class because their hard work is not represented in the way they live their life. At first glance the Valley of Ashes seems run down and a place without hope. Smoke is always rising from factories across the land, and people working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. In the novel, Nick describes the Valley of Ashes by saying “This is the 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 ash-grey men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air”. As Nick describes this he states how everything belonging to Valley of Ashes is made in the form of ashes. He makes it seem as it isn’t a place that anyone should be living or wanting to live at. The Valley of Ashes seems like it shouldn’t be in existence because of the people’s struggles and they way they live although they are the hardest working people in the state. Nick describes the gardens to be grotesque as all the city around there dump their ashes on the gardens so they seem as though they should be gardens whereas they are just dumping grounds for everyone’s ashes. Fitzgerald uses The Valley of Ashes to represent the failed american dream. It shows that no matter how hard you work it is never going to get where you want to be. The Valley of Ashes is full of people who work hard everyday but they are unable to live the american dream that everyone has high hopes for. The American Dream is 

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