Untitled Essay, Research Paper

Sybolism in the Great Gastby

By: Twyla Lomen

F. Scott Fitzgerald & # 8217 ; s & # 8220 ; The Great Gatsby & # 8221 ; is rich in symbolism, which is

portrayed on several different degrees in a assortment of ways. One of the

most of import qualities of symbolism within this novel, is the manner in

which it is so to the full integrated into the secret plan and construction. Some of the

symbols are used largely as tools for word picture such as

Wolfsheim & # 8217 ; s cuff links, Gatsby & # 8217 ; s immense library of untrimmed books, and

Tom & # 8217 ; s repeated gesture of physically forcing other people around.

Other symbols such as Gatsby & # 8217 ; s auto, typifying stuff wealth in

America and its destructfulness, have a map in the secret plan every bit good as

a more abstract significance. However, the major symbols such as

the vale of ashes, the green visible radiation, and the E and West, are filled

with significances that go beyond the secret plan, and genuinely gaining control Fitzgerald & # 8217 ; s

subject of this novel ; the corruptness of the American dream.

The perversive consequence of wealth is shown by the struggle between

the established rich, represented by the East Eggers, and the freshly

rich, represented by the West Eggers. West Egg is the place of the

nouveaux riche, of Gatsby and those like him who have made immense

lucks, but lack the traditions associated with familial wealth and

are hence coarse. The East Eggers, represented by the James buchanans

hold the traditions and deficiency coarseness, but they have been corrupted

by the aimlessness and the empty hereafters their money has

provided. The ruin of the American promise is besides symbolized

by the reversal of E and West. When the colonists came to the & # 8220 ; New

World & # 8221 ; ( America ) to get away persecution and the corruptness of their

states, they traveled from E to West. However, since the ideal

has been corrupted, people travel from West to east attracted by the

wealth and a mercenary life, dissembling the true emptiness of their

end of felicity. Daisy, Tom, Nick, Jordan, and Gatsby all wer

vitamin E

westerners, and by traveling east, they moved from a universe of values

to a moral vacuity, represented by the & # 8220 ; vale of ashes. & # 8221 ;

The vale of ashes represent a modern universe, which is like a

grotesque snake pit created by modern industry. Factories and trains,

produced in the industry of wealth, has polluted America with its

wastes. It is a physical desert that symbolizes the religious devastation,

that a society based on money creates. Overlooking the vale, are

the eyeless eyes of T.J. Ecklburg, an advertizement on a hoarding in

which a character really confuses as God. It represents a God who

has been created by modern society to do money. It represents a

God who no longer sees nor attentions. The whole vale symbolizes a

universe whose dwellers are so spiritually lost, that they worship

money and wealth. The promise of felicity, hope, and freedom

that America gave its first colonists, has been corrupted by the prevarications of

greed, and the emptiness of a dream based on wealth.

Green is the colour of promise, of hope, reclamation, and finally

the green visible radiation to which Gatsby stretches out his weaponries. The green

light symbolically corresponds to the & # 8220 ; green chest of a new universe, & # 8221 ;

and at the terminal fuses Gatsby & # 8217 ; s vision of Daisy with that of the

adventurers who had discovered the promise of a new continent. What

finally quarries on the vision, the end, is that in America and by

Gatsby it can merely be attained through the acquisition of stuff

ownerships.

Gatsby is a symbol for the whole American experience. The

corruptness of his dream, by utilizing philistinism as its agencies and the

semblance of young person and beauty as its end, is the corruptness of American

idealism, which in bend becomes the empty promise. In the terminal

Gatsby is destroyed by his semblances of Daisy, merely as the fresh

landscape of America has been converted into a cheerless & # 8220 ; vale of

ashes, & # 8221 ; and the sacred green visible radiation becomes nil but a bulb

combustion at the terminal of Daisy & # 8217 ; s dock.