Setting:
1. List the four main settings in the novel. Provide a description for each setting and explain what each setting represents.
2. Select two of the settings from above and discuss how these settings helped you to understand the idea of illusion in the novel. Use quotes to support your ideas.N

New York:
New York is a vibrant, buzzing city in USA. In the Great Gatsby, New York is the place where people like, Tom and Myrtle, from Long Island can flee from their lives at home and forget about their troubles in reality. The cities electrifying atmosphere provides  a place for these people to become occupied in other business. Further on in the novel this is the place where the very important scene of Tom and Gatsby having a fight happens. And also Tom and Myrtle’s affair takes place in a hotel in central New York. 

West Egg:
In the novel West Egg is described by Nick as “… the less fashionable of the two, although this is a most superficial tag to express the bizarre and not little sinister contrast between them.” It is described at the less fashionable because West Egg is also known as ‘new money’ because the people that live there have worked hard for all their money. This is where Gatsby lives in his humongous mansion and Nick in his small cottage.
Gatsby’s house is every bit as charming as him self. Coincidentally is is directly across from Daisy and Toms house, in West Egg. 

East Egg: 
East Egg is consumed by old money, people that have inherited all of their money from generations above in their families. b  Daisy and Tom’s house live in an exquisite mansion that is built in East Egg. “Across the courtesy bay the white palaces of fashionable east egg glittered along the water.”
East Egg also shows the idea of illusion in relation to the American Dream. This is because 

Valley of ashes
The Valley of Ashes is the part of New York, where a the poor workers live, it is described in the book as “…a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes take the form of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and finally, with a transcendent effort, of ash-grey men, who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air.” This tells the readers about how the people that live there are as dull and lifeless as all the atmosphere that surrounds them. The Valley of Ashes is overlooked by a ancient billboard that has the image of Dr. T.J Eckleburg, citizens that live here view the eyes as a ‘god’ looking over them and watching all their actions. The Valley of Ashes helped me understand the idea of illusion because the people that live there actively believe in the ‘American Dream’. The American Dream is a saying where people believe that if you work hard enough you will be rewarded with wealth, status and a happy fulfilled life. However in the Valley of Ashes this dream is never going to be a reality for them because they have worked hard all of their life but yet they still live in the Valley of Ashes and are still poor.