P- the "valley of ashes" with the atmosphere of West Egg, East Egg, and Manhattan. What is the significance of the Valley of Ashes? What images does Fitzgerald use to describe the landscape? How does the setting seem to affect the people who live there?​

Explanation:

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 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…

The valley of ashes is bounded on one side by a small foul river, and when the drawbridge is up to let barges through, the passengers on waiting trains can stare at the dismal scene for as long as half an hour. There is always a halt there of at least a minute and it was because of this that I first met Tom Buchanan's mistress.

jim mohr

explanation:

- "the answers are a and b.  

when cullen speaks of planting while others reap, and standing "abject and mute," he is speaking about the racial injustices present in american society. as these injustices have changed over time, the american identity  has also shifted. those changes are, in turn, reflected in american literature."