Gatsby - Favorite Passage

"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. 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 car 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." (Fitzgerald p.26)

I found that the first paragraph of the second chapter (shown above) of The Great Gatsby was the most beautiful passage in the book. Fitzgerald, throughout the book, is reinforcing the idea that the American Dream is simply a hoax and that nothing good comes out of it. This passage essentially explains the premise of the entire book in a short, but meaningful, passage. The first two sentences contains strong metaphorical weight, even more so now having read the entire book and analyzed the recurring themes. As we discussed in class, West Egg represents new money. New York is the iconic place in America where dreams are made, therefore representing the impossible American Dream. People specifically from West Egg are trying to reach the unattainable American Dream, which lies in New York. To go to New York, they must take a railroad, which is joined by the motor road for a quarter mile. The motor road  represents the new drug of speed - as it "hastily" meets with the railroad - and how its influence leads to the corruption of those trying to achieve the American Dream. Following the introduction of cars, represented by the motor road running alongside the railroad, the tracks lead to the despair and helplessness found in the valley of ashes. After a "quarter mile", the tracks begin to "shrink away from a certain desolate area of land", symbolizing that driving on this track, even for a short distance, will only lead one to the valley of ashes. Then, the rest of the passage describes the despair and poverty that the lower class people face (discussed in class).