In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald describes three adjacent neighborhoods on Long Island. One is East Egg, where the established wealthy families live. The second is West Egg, which consists mostly of the "newly rich" (Long 106). The third is the "valley of ashes," a lower class neighborhood which is depicted as a "waste land" of gaudy billboards and corrosive dust (Fitzgerald 24). Nick Carraway and Tom Buchanan visit the valley of ashes a few days prior to the Fourth of July. Because of this reference to America's Independence Day, Long indicates that Fitzgerald's intention is to make a "comment on the new republic and the society it has fostered" (108). Le Vot further claims that the valley of ashes refers to "the failure of the American dream, which could only be materially realized at the cost of this debasement of nature" (157). In the course of the novel, it becomes clear that the residents of East Egg and West Egg are equally symbolic of the corruption and decay of traditional American values. Thus, in Bewley's words, "the theme of Gatsby is the withering of the American dream" (11). The American dream is focused on the idea that anyone can become a success if they work long enough and hard enough. However, this dream had become debased by Fitzgerald's time because success is typically defined only in terms of materialistic values. The Great Gatsby makes the point that the quest for materialism is an empty promise because material things are transitory. Without the balance which is provided by spiritual values, the dream creates "an American world that denies the soul" (Bewley 26). This paper will examine the effect of this withering of the American dream on the major characters in The Great Gatsby.
Jay Gatsby, a resident of West Egg, is completely trapped and deluded by his version of the American dream. In the tradition of that dream, Gatsby is literally a "self-made man." Originally, he was Jimmy Gat...