The Great Gatsby Quotes
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About half way between West Egg and New York the motor road hastily joins the railroad and runs beside it for a quarter of a mile, so as to shrink away from a certain desolate area of land. This is a valley of ashes—a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and, finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air.
Context
West Egg—where Gatsby lives—is connected to New York by a road and a set of train tracks. The "desolate area of land" between the two is known as a "valley of ashes."
Think of the valley of ashes as one big, grey reality check. Compare Gatsby's lavish parties of fresh fruit and live music and champagne to this land of smokestacks and ash-men, and you quickly realize that not all the world is as privileged as the characters in the novel.
But the valley of ashes can also be seen as more commentary on the American Dream—or, more accurately, the failed American Dream.
Where you've heard it
If someone refers to a place as a "valley of ashes," you can be sure they're making some sort of deep commentary on loss.
That, or they're talking about the real place on which it was based.
Pretentious Factor
If you were to drop this quote at a dinner party, would you get an in-unison "awww" or would everyone roll their eyes and never invite you back? Here it is, on a scale of 1-10.
We just hope you're not referring to the day-old guacamole.