Great Gatsby?

Ok at the beggining chapter two it describes the valley of ashes i wanted to know if tis was some type of reference to the gilded/industrial age and the robber barrons.





This is the quote here:


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. Occasionally a line of grey cars crawls along an invisible track, gives out a ghastly creak and comes to rest, and immediately the ash-grey men swarm up with leaden spades and stir up an impenetrable cloud which screens their obscure operations from your sight.

Great Gatsby?
I actually think it's referring to a giant rubbish tip that really did (does?) exist just outside the real New York City. It's inhabited by the people left out of the economic boom and polite society (represented by Daisy and Tom, who also symbolises the corruption of the age and it's lack of real moral fibre). The people there have been left behind in the economic progress, and I think that's the point he's trying to make. They have to live in this terrible environment where they lose hope and start to blend in to the background. They are swamped by the rubbish that the middle class, like Tom and Daisy, create through their reckless and uncaring behaviour.
Reply:http://www.gradesaver.com/classicnotes/t...





This might help you. The valley of ashes is representative of the decay of society.