"About half way between West Egg and New York the motor road hastily joins the
railroad and runs beside it for a quarter of a mile, so as to shrink away from
a certain desolate area of land. This is a 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. Occasionally a line of grey cars crawls along an invisible
track, gives out a ghastly creak, and comes to rest, and immediately the ash-grey
men swarm up with leaden spades and stir up an impenetrable cloud, which screens
their obscure operations from your sight."
"But above the grey land and the spasms of bleak dust which drift endlessly
over it, you perceive, after a moment, the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg. The
eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg are blue and gigantic--their retinas are over
one yard high. They look out of no face, but, instead, from a pair of enormous
yellow spectacles which pass over a nonexistent nose. Evidently some wild wag
of an oculist set them there to fatten his practice in the borough of Queens,
and then sank down himself into eternal blindness, or forgot them and moved
away. But his eyes, dimmed a little by many painless days under sun and rain,
brood on over the solemn dumping ground" (27-28).
The Valley of Ashes
symbolizes all the immorality of the age. The eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg
watch over the land as God once looked over the earth. Doctor T.J. Eckleburg
watches over the train riders as they travel to and from New York. At the end
of the novel, we finally realize that God is dead, and He has been for quite
some time. Everything that happens during the summer adds to this realization.
The lack of inhibitions that the people display encourages this theory.
The lack of inhibitions in society of the 1920s is displayed by one of the visitors to one of Gatsby's many parties. This man becomes intoxicated and decides to drive his car home. He runs the car right into the ditch at the end of the driveway. The passenger climbs out and proceeds to tell the crowd that he was not driving. When the crowd finally believes him, they find out that the intoxicated driver has been killed in the accident. No one really seems to care all that much. This instance further adds to the lack of inhibitions and compassion in the society in the 1920s.
Another aspect that adds to the concept that God is dead would be the death
of the American Dream. We can look at it by way of Gatsby's fortune, his dealings
with organized crime, and the immoral people who have all the money. Gatsby
acquired his fortune supposedly by bootlegging. He became attached to organized
crime through his bootlegging of whiskey during Prohibition. The wealthy immoral
would be Tom and Daisy Buchanan, for instance. The two of them run around as
though they own the world. They do anything and everything against morality.
Daisy kills Tom's mistress and thinks nothing of it. She just continues on with
her life after slamming right into the woman. The American Dream is dead by
this time in their lives.
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: Collier Books, 1992.