3. In your own words, explain what the valley of ashes symboizes in the novel.

the great gatsby

Valley of Ashes represents absolute poverty and hopelessness.

Explanation:

The Great Gatsby is a novel that had the contrary concept of the novel The America Dream both written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Thus, the American Dream is actually written to discover happiness but it led to the desire for wealth by any means.

Thus he wrote this novel to show that wealth is not a way to achieve happiness. He represented the valley of ashes to a wonderful farm. But only ashes will grow like wheat in a tremendous amount. The valley is full of industrial wastes that are all the by-products of capitalism.

It is surrounded by the foul smelled river and people over there wanted to leave that place but they can't. He illustrated that the concept from the American Dream will be just a dream and it cannot be achieved.