Question

What is the significance of the Valley of the Ashes? What images does Fitzgerald use to describe the landscape? How does the setting seem to affect the people who live there? There is a remarkable contrast in the atmosphere of the “valley of the ashes” with the atmosphere of West Egg and East Egg as well as that of Manhattan.

Answer 1

The political unrest and economic instability of the 1920s and the 1970s provided an opportunity for extreme political parties to blame more-moderate political parties or the ruling government for either not doing enough to solve the country’s issues or for causing the problems in the first place. In both 1920s Germany and 1970s Cambodia, these circumstances allowed these authoritarian groups, the Nazis and the Khmer Rouge, to climb to power.