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Symbolism in The Great Gatsby
The Great Gaisby Is one of the most symbolic works of literature written this century, and to truly understand the book, one must first understand Its symbolism. The characters, the cars they drive, the colors, and even the peoples names all have some type of symbolic meaning. These symbols add a quality to the novel that sets it apart from other works. Though there are many symbols throughout the novel, the three most significant symbols in FE Scott Fitzgeralds The Great Gatsby are the Valley of Ashes, the eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg, and the green light at the end of the Buchanans dock, all of which add texture to the plot, while serving as the novels main ideas. One of the most important symbols in literary history is the Valley of Ashes.
The Valley of Ashes is a desolate and lonely area of land about half way between West Egg and New York. This deserted area is no more than a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens, where ashes take the torm ot houses and chimneys and rising smoke and finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powderly air(Fitzgerald 27). The valley is full of foul dust that floats in the wake of Americans dreams: the waste of spiritual resources exploited in a desperate efort to sustain that impossible and disastrously circular thrust into the future and the waste of spiritual resources exploited in the service of vast, Vuigar, and meretricious beaut.(Moyer 223) In other words, the toul dust is the corruptive materialism, ike a worm in an apple, at the center of the transcendental dream(Moyer 223). it shows Just how materialistic and unspiritual the American society has become. Not only IS the toul dust symbolic, but the valley as a whole is a metaphor or American spiritual desiccation(Moyer 223). The wasteland between west Egg and New York, in fact, comes to resemble a microcosm of America itself; it is a vision of an America made of dust (Moyer 223).
Everything about the valley of Ashes contains a somewhat symbolic meaning, including the people that inhabit it. It is the Wilsons who represent the resources of human energy and hope that are drained in order to feed the materialistic orgy which American transcendentalism has inevitably become(Moyer 224). Over all, the valley represents the modern industry, which sends the railroad cars full of ashes, poisoning the American landscape with waste produced in the manufacture of wealth. This Valley of Ashes is a physical desert that symbolizes the spiritual desolation and unglamorous Sides of modern American society. The eyes of Dr. T. J. Etkleburg add a strange wist of symbolism to the novel. Though the eyes are nothing more than an old billboard left there years before, they truly have a deeper meaning (Burnam 153). For instance, George Wilson confuses those faded eyes with the eyes of God, a confusion which suggests that in twentieth-century America God has become a thing of cardboard, ineffectual and passive, robbed of power by a short-sighted materialistic displacement of spiritual values(Moyer 224).
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The billboard shows how God has withdrawn from America and been replaced by a commercial billboard (Lethan 32). But the eyes of Dr. 1.J. ECKieburg are the eyes or GOd, it is a GOd who Is no longer present and who was created by an ambitious oculist trying to make money. This ties the sightless eyes in with the materialistic and unspiritual wasteland over which they brood. Thus, Dr. T. J. ECKieburgs eyes accurately symbolize the carelessness that modern America, as well as the characters in the novel, feels toward God, and this explains why they are able to lie, kil, and destroy lives with out feelings of regret. The simple green light at the end of the Buchanans dock is one of the most symbolic ideas in the novel. The light is also said to be the central symbol of the book. In fact, our first glimpse of Gatsby at the end of chapter one is related to the green lgnt (5ewiey a0-41). It is naraiy too much to say tnat the wiole Deing or Gatsby exists only in relation to what the green light symbolIzes (Bewley 41). the green light is most clearly associated in Gatsbys with Daisy, but it represents more han Daisy herself (Gunn 228).
It symbolizes to Gatsby all that Daisy meant to him during their, very briet, but poignant love afair five years before (Gunn 228). At the end of chapter one Gatsby stands with his arms outstretched, as if by somehow embracing the green light and possessing the orgastic future it represents Fitzgerald 188). To Gatsby the green light was a signal to go ahead to beat on . . against the current (IZgerald l89) to attempt so desperately to recapture the past which he can never attain. Fitzgerald also links the wonder of the green light with the wonder evoked by the green breast of the new worid (Fiztgerald 189). Thus, he green light at the end of the tirst chapter is linked to the vision of the explorers, who discovered the promise of a new continent, in the last chapter. However, this green light is inevitably the down fall of Gatsby. he destroys himself in an attempt to seize the light in his own tingers (Ornstien 4).some critucs argue that the light should have been red; foreshadowing and telling Gatsby to stop before he dies.
However, Gatsby did not comprehend this and walks blindly intoa trap, which esults in his death. Though the Valley of Ashes, eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg. and the green light at the end of the Buchanans dock give the plot a symbolic dimension, they also stand for the main ideas of the novel. They all relate to a general criticism of American culture. These symbols show how materialistic and unspiritual modern America has become. They help paint a clear image of what the novel really means, as well as the message Fitzgerald was trying to portray.
Works Cited
- Bewely, Marius. Scott Fitzgerald and the Collapse of the American Dream. Bloom, Modern Critical Views 23-48.
- Bloom, Harold, ed. Critical views of F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby. G. K. Hall & Company,1984.
- Burnam, Tom. The Eyes of Dr. Eckleburg: A Reexamination of The Great Gatsby. TCLC 14: 153-155.
- Fitzgerald, F Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995. Gunn, Giles. FE. Scott Fitzgeralds Gatsby and the imagination of Wonder
Donaldson 228-41.
