Canadian musician Rick Danko once said, “As time goes by, we get closer to that American dream where a pie is cut and shared. Usually, greed and selfishness prevent this and there is always a bad apple in every barrel.” This is true in F.Scott Fitzgerald's Great Gatsby. It's the story primarily of a self-made man named Jay Gatsby and the decadence of his American dream, which is to get Daisy Buchannan back after five years of separation. But because of how Daisy is too selfish and infatuated with Tom's social status and "old money", she doesn't realize how hard Gatsby fought to get her back. The Valley of Ashes, the Green Light, and Gatsby's death are all important symbols in the novel that have a deeper meaning. One of the most important symbols in the novel is the Valley of Ashes. The Valley of Ashes is the town between East and West Egg, “a fantastical farm where ashes grow like wheat in ridges, hills, and grotesque gardens; where the ashes take the form of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and, finally, with a transcendent effort, of men moving vaguely and already crumbling in the powdery air. The Valley of Ashes represents despair and the lower class. The people who live there all want to leave but they can't, because of the structure of society. Only the rich have the money and power to achieve what they want in life. When Tom and Nick stopped for gas on their way to New York, Wilson says the man working on the car works slowly. Tom replies, “No, he doesn’t,” Tom says coldly. “And if you feel that way, maybe I’d be better off selling it somewhere else after all.” This shows how much Tom despises Wilson just because of the difference in their social status, Tom is part of t... ... middle of paper ...... takes full advantage of his fortune. Due to his sudden death, Gatsby was never able to fully enjoy his own money; he was always too busy trying to make his dream come true. When Nick finds Gatsby knocked down in the pool, he says, "The touch of a group of leaves made him turn slowly, tracing, like the leg of a compass, a thin red circle in the water." Gatsby's death in a swimming pool symbolizes his cleansing of all his sins before flying off to heaven. All his sins were related to him trying to achieve his dream, which was ultimately unattainable. The Great Gatsby was simply the story of a man trying to achieve his American dream. The novel says that we are all symbol-creating creatures. Believing in the American dream which symbolizes a certain type of lifestyle. The various social climbers and ambitious speculators who attend Gatsby's parties are proof of this greedy race for wealth..