 Description - p. 23  ASHES are what is left when the fire fades out...  Hellish, land in decay (result of decadence)  T. S. Eliot’s “Wasteland” (1922)  Garbage Dump in Corona, Queens, located along railroad from Manhattan to Long Island

 1930s: City purchases Corona Dump and cleans it up for the 1939 World’s Fair:

 Later, served as World’s Fair:

 Queens Zoo, U.S. Open, CitiField, etc.

 Residence (& repair shop – a “shadow of a garage”) of George Wilson (and wife Myrtle)  Imagery – pp  Tom’s affair is with Myrtle Wilson … her motivation??  (She hopes to escape her tedious and lifeless existence in the Valley of Ashes)  Is her “dream” realistic?? Why/why not??  (No … social status!)

 Tom, Myrtle, & Nick … then:  Catherine (Myrtle’s sister), Mr. McKee (feminine, artistic), & his wife (obnoxious, loud, shrill)  Significance of Mrs. Wilson changing “costumes” & personality (pp )?  She is role-playing, pretending she is part of high class society  Examples of how Gatsby’s name again comes up?  (shrouded in mystery & rumors (p. 32))

 Myrtle hates being married, and is simply waiting to marry Tom (who claims he hates Daisy, a “Catholic” – Nick shocked at “the elaborateness of the lie”)  Why did Myrtle marry George??  (b/c she “thought he was a gentleman” (34))  She becomes upset when she learns that George borrowed a suit to get married in)  Importance of CLOTHES motif (external, superficial)  In fact, how did Myrtle’s affair with Tom begin?  (with her fascination of his CLOTHES (dress suit, patent leather shoes, white shirt))

 Myrtle’s cries of “Daisy” cause Tom to punch her, breaking her nose  This interrupts the unreal, hazy, smoke-filled atmosphere of unreality that had pervaded the party