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Great Gatsby Essay

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Submitted By volleyball5
Words 910
Pages 4
Haley Davis
Mrs.Cowgill
Period 2
6th February 2013

“Corruption is like a ball of snow once it is set rolling it must increase” (Charles Caleb). Although the valley ashes and West Egg in the Great Gatsby are completely different at first glance because of their physical characteristics and the characters status they are the same when looked into more deeply. The Valley of ashes and the West Egg are similar through the violence, abuse, and infidelity that happen there. Fitzgerald uses these two places to show that despite the characters status and money there are immoral people in every place throughout the world. When looking at the physical characteristics of the Valley of Ashes and comparing it to the physical characteristics of West Egg a reader might make the generalization that there is abuse going on in the Valley of ashes because of the lack of many and happiness in West Egg because of the flow of money in households. Although once the story progresses further it is shown that abuse and unhappiness are present in both places. Myrtle is from the Valley of Ashes although her husband George is not physically abusive like Tom he is not a “gentleman” and at one point he shows abuse by saying to one of his neighbors “I’ve got my wife locked up in there”(Fitzgerald 136). George does not think anything of his abuse and ill treatment of his wife he just feels that she deserves it and should obey him or be punished. In the same way Tom abuses Daisy in West Egg. There are no scenes of physical violence between Tom and Daisy in this place but there is mental abuse shown through the fact that Daisy knows about Toms affair but doesn’t do anything about it except stay with him. It says, “The telephone rang inside startlingly, as Daisy shook her head decisively at Tom” this is important to show abuse because Daisy never speaks up towards her husband she just lets him

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