The valley of ashes in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby (1925) is an industrial wasteland located between the fictional “new money” village of West Egg in New York and Manhattan in New York City. It symbolizes the dark side of the American Dream and the struggles of the underclasses. Its very presence is a stark contrast to the prosperity of the Jazz Age, showing the consequences of America’s postwar economic boom and the ugly truth behind the consumer culture that props up newly rich people such as self-made millionaire Jay Gatsby.
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