The Valley of Ashes and the American Dream

The valley of Ashes speaks for itself I guess, its just a hole full of hopeful people almost like a curse or a cage you can never get out of but can survive it because of the hope you have of something that you don’t know will ever come. It shows the search for riches, while the rich throw their money around like its nothing

The Valley of Ashes is a setting in “the Great Gatsby” that illustrates the failure if The American Dream.  James Truslow Adams once said “The American Dream is that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone with opportunity for each accordingly to ability or achievement”. Through Fitzgerald’s development of the setting, The Valley of Ashes, he presents the idea that Truslow’s version of the American Dream has failed. It is a setting where people who work hard live but never reap the rewards of their hard work. Opportunities to live that better, richer, fuller life never presents themselves to the people in the VOA.    As Nick (our Narrator) travels through the valley he notes it is a “fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens…”