Fitzgerald, theauthor of The Great Gatsby, writes in a distinctive style that gives the readera chance to think about the context of the book as a whole.
Throughout thebook, Fitzgerald uses metaphors, imagery, and symbolism to point out biggerthings going on in the story. Whether it’s a metaphor, imagery, or symbols,there’s a meaning behind each one and each have either a big or smallcontribution to the novels overall effect. Chapter 2, is the first time we hear of Dr. TJ Eckelberg. The quote, “abovethe grey land and the spasms of bleak dust which drift endlessly over it, youperceive, after a moment, the eyes of Doctor T. J.
Eckelberg” is when theeyes of Dr. TJ Eckelberg where first introduced. Fitzgerald even goes intodepth as to what the eyes of Dr. TJ Eckelberg symbolize and how they look, alsoin Chapter 2 “The eyes of Dr. TJ Eckelberg are blue and gigantic—theirretinas are one yard high. They look out of no face, but, instead, from a pairof enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a nonexistent nose”. The eyes of Dr.
TJ Eckelberg symbolize theeyes of “god”, many people along with George Wilson is that the eyesmay represent “god”, whom is looking down on the bad people who pass”The Valley of Ashes” and the criticism of American society as amoral wasteland was also an unstated symbolism of the eyes. “God sees everything.” Wasa quote that was used to verify the connection that Wilson makes between theeyes of Eckelberg and God. In fact, this connection is a metaphor in whichWilson compares the eyes of this giant billboard to those of God himself. Thisshows that the eyes have a profound and spiritual effect on Wilson. As stated above the valley of ashes, was a fantastic farm where ashesgrow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens where ashes takethe forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and finally, with atranscendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through thepowdery air. The valley of ashes, waswhere the eyes of TJ Eckelberg is. The valley of ashes symbolizes the moral andsocial decay that happens because of the abandoned dream of wealth, as the richbecome involved and consider nothing but their own pleasure.
The valley ofashes also symbolizes the difficulty and troubles of poor people, like GeorgeWilson, who live among the dirty ashes and lose their spirit/liveliness as aresult. Also, in the book, Fitzgerald creates a divide between those inheritablyrich and those who have worked for their riches. East and West were both symbolsthat was used throughout the whole book. East and west egg were both citiesthat have two different classes of wealth in each city. West Egg symbolizes thepresent. Because with “new money” people have to work for theirworth, instead of being fortunate and inheriting their money. East Eggrepresents the past because of how they obtain their money and people from EastEgg gain their money from inheritance which is “old money”.
The green light was a strong symbol used mostly to guide the charactersespecially Gatsby. The green light was positioned at the end of Daisy’s dockwhich was in East egg and somewhat visible from Gatsby’s lawn in West egg, the greenlight represents the hopes and dreams Gatsby has for his future. Gatsbyassociates the green light to Daisy, and in Chapter 1 he reaches toward it inthe darkness as a guiding light to lead him to his goal. The green lightcontributed to the novels overall effect by giving Gatsby the permission tomove forward and attempt to get daisy. Later on, in the novel, the light givesout, therefor, hope is gone and in essence foreshadows the tragic death ofGatsby occurred. In conclusion, by the end of the book all the main characters are dead,Gatsby, Myrtle and George died tragically, and Daisy and Tom went back to Westegg. Nick realizes that chasing a future dream just ends up bringing us back inthe past. All of our dreams are based on visions of our self just in the past,like Gatsby who in the past believed that he would end up with Daisy and whobelieved in the American dream.
By chasing these dreams into the future, hejust ended up destroying himself. Nick’s final judgement of Gatsby was thatGatsby deserved to die. Nick comes to the conclusion that Tom and Daisyare careless and that they destroy people and things, just because their beliefthat their money will shield them from facing any negative consequences.
