One of the major themes within the novel is East vs. Neither of them truly fit in with those surroundings. Both Fitzgerald and Carraway found themselves surrounded by high society and dishonest people.
Nick Carraway can be seen to represent the outsider that Fitzgerald felt himself to be. Fitzgerald would spend the majority of his career struggling to earn as much money as possible to maintain the privelaged lifestyle that Zelda desired. The love of a woman was the motivating factor behind virtually all of Gatsby's actions, and many of the young Fitzgerald's. Gatsby felt that he needed wealth to win the hand of Daisy, and Fitzgerald felt the same about Zelda.
Similarly, they both achieved their financial success for the love of a woman. Gatsby and Fitzgerald are alike by both being self-made men who have achieved financial success. Within the characters of Nick Carraway and Jay Gatsby we can see the dueling parts of Fitzgerald's own personality. Many of the characters in his novels are based on people from his life. Much has been made of Fitzerald's relation to his characters. We see that Gatsby had a pure dream, but became corrupt in his quest towards that dream. Through the novel, Fitzgerald puts across the idea that the American dream has been corrupted by the desire for materialism. Symbolism is heavily used, and can be found in both the characters actions and the physical objects.
Carraway is the only character in the novel to exhibit, and hold onto, a sense of morals and decency throughout the novel. It is through Carraway's eyes that we see the other characters and the world they live in. Within the novel, Fitzgerald uses the character of Nick Carraway as the first-person narrator. Despite the favorable reviews, the sales for the novel were disappointing. The novel would prove to be Fitzgerald's most accomplished novel, and was an immediate critical success. The land in the background is described as “gray” which may represent emptiness and death.The Great Gatsby was first published in 1925. Here the great yellow eyes are first introduced and the reader’s curiosity is peaked for a deeper understanding of what these eyes mean and represent. “But above the gray land and spasms of bleak dust which drift endlessly over it, you perceive… the eyes … from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles” (Fitzgerald 23). The simile (“like wheat”) is used give the reader a good visual. Also, it connects many metaphorical figures with physical objects such as the valley itself. This quote describes the Valley of Ashes at its best. This is a Valley of Ashes – a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat like ridges and hills and grotesque gardens where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and, finally, with a transcendent effort” (Fitzgerald 23). “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. The valley of ashes also symbolizes the plight of the poor, like George Wilson, who live among the dirty ashes and lose their vitality as a result. It represents the moral and social decay that results from the uninhibited pursuit of wealth, as the rich indulge themselves with regard for nothing but their own pleasure. First introduced in Chapter II, the valley of ashes between West Egg and New York City consists of a long stretch of desolate land created by the dumping of industrial ashes.