Choose a novel which had such an impact on you that you still reflect upon its message. Explain why the novel has had such an impact on you

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Choose a novel which had such an impact on you that you still reflect upon its message.

Explain why the novel has had such an impact on you.

The Great Gatsby, an insightful and intelligent critique of the emerging decadence and materialism that was sweeping 1920s America, holds a message that is just as relevant in our current time as it was when Fitzgerald wrote it. Looking more carefully at the messages the book puts foward, one can easily draw accurate and almost frightening modern parallels with figures and events in our modern day world. One can look at the continual spread of the desire for material wealth, money and status which are all too present in this time and easily apply Fitzgerald's message ... which has not yet been heeded. And it is these messages, of personal and social consequence, which have impacted upon me the most as I still reflect upon them and their significance in the modern world.

        Perhaps the way in which the messages and themes of the novel are highlighted with the greatest degree of clarity in understanding is in symbolism. Fitzgerald uses a multitude of symbols by which to illustrate the effects of the America that was emerging at the time, shedding light upon the places which were blown into desolation by the boom of 1920s America.

"Desolate..grotesque" and unfalteringly "ash-grey"

Introduced in Chapter II amid a list of negavies, The Valley of Ashes is a spectacle of poverty cruelly juxtaposed against the oppulence of the rich East and West Eggs. The Valley Of Ashes is the "foul river" Styx of Mythology, ominously carrying the "leaden" inhabitants along the certain journey into the underworld. A definate symbol of the other side of the American Dream, there is no greater demonstration of the ills of the consumer society and the results of the rich as the dirge that the Valley has become. While the rich are consumed in their unending search for wealth, pleasure and happiness, the people of the Valley desparately try to forge a living amongst the ashes. By using the geographical symbol of The Valley Of Ashes, Fitzgerald enables me to easily draw a parallel with the impoverished areas of America in the present day. And the impact is increased when one sees just how little those in power and wealth in today's world care about the plight of others, just as the rich of the East and West Eggs felt towards those who resided in the valley of Ashes.

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        Fitzgerald includes a personal account of the troubles of life in The Valley Of Ashes in the characters of George and Myrtle Wilson. On one hand George struggles with existance as a mechanic, picking up scraps of business whenever they come by in order to preserve his wife and himself as the vitality is slowly ebbing away from him. Myrtle has taken a slightly different route and instead does indeed posess a zest and vitality that her character opposite - Daisy - does not. Unlike Daisy, she has a distinctly sexual air about her; she "carries her flesh sensually", the ...

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