Setting is the most important physical manifestation of theme in the novel. Matching characters and classes to perfectly evoke the new social realities of the 19200s. Each of the four important geographical locations in the novel West Egg. East Egg, the Valley of Ashes and New York City corresponds to a particular theme or type of character encountered throughout the story.
The first chapter introduces us to two of the most important areas, West Egg and East Egg. Though each home to fabulous wealth, and though separated only by a small expanse of water, the two regions are nearly opposite. West Egg is like Gatsby, full of garnish extravagance. Symbolizing the new rich springing up outside the established aristocracy of the 200s. It is associated with Gatsby’s monstrous mansion and inner drive behind his self-made fortune. While, East Egg is associated with the monotony of the Buchanan’s inherited social position. East Egg is like the Buchanans, wealthy, possessing high social status. And powerful, symbolizing the old upper class that continued to dominate the American social landscape. The intersection of the two Eggs in Gatsby and Daisy’s romance will be the fault line that leads to the novels greatest catastrophe.
The Valley of Ashes is like George Wilson, desolate, desperate and utterly without hope, symbolizing the moral decay hidden by the glittering surface of upper-class society. It is a symbol of absolute desolation and poverty; unlike the other settings in the book, it lacks a glamorous surface and lies fallow and gray halfway between West Egg and New York, representing the moral decay hidden by the beautiful surfaces of those settings. It is the only place in the novel that serves as a home to the poor, and is presided over by the unsettling, massive eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg.
This pair of monstrous and, spectacled eyes, gazing down from their billboard, is one of the most important images in the novel The Great Gatsby is full of image of sight and blindness, Owl Eyels spectacles The eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg stand as a sort of epitome of these images, all seeing and un-comprehending. The eyells uncertain meaning makes them so unsettling: Fitzgerald preserves their mystery, giving them no fixed symbolic value. Enigmatically, the eyes, brood on over the solemn dumping ground!
New York is everything opposite of the Valleys of Ashes loud, gamish, abundant, and glittering. It is simply chaos, an abundant swell of variety and life, most perfectly associated with that quality of distortion: Nick perceives in the East. To Nick, New York is simultaneously fascinating and repulsive, thrillingly fast paced and dazzling to look at, but without any moral center. Even in the valley of ashes Tom is forced to keep his affair with Myrtle relatively discreet, but in New York, he can appear with her in public without causing a scandal, even among his acquaintances. This again shows the reason for Nick thinking that New York has no moral center.
The weather is also a very important part of the setting as it matches the movement of the plot; Gatsby’s reunion with Daisy begins in a ferocious thunderstorm and reaches its happiest moment just as the sun comes out, Tomis confrontation with Gatsby occurs on the hottest day of the summer and Gatsbyls death occurs just as autumn creeps into the air.
Setting is extremely important to The Great Gatsby, because it reinforces the themes and character traits most commonly encountered in the story: everything in the physical world corresponds to something in the story.
