Context question on the beginning of chapter 2 of the 'Great Gatsby'
In this passage at the beginning of chapter two, many significant themes need to be
addressed as the passage is important in the development of the novel.
The language used in this passage is very descriptive. The image of 'The valley of
ashes' is that it is a dry, baron wasteland, 'a fantastic farm where ashes grow like
wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens.' This vivid description of the area
between east and west Egg portrays the valley as being sterile and spiritually desolate,
as this is where Myrtle Wilson (Tom Buchanan's mistress) lives with her husband. As
neither Tom or Myrtle feel any remorse about meeting in the presence of George, and
in fact continue as normal, with Tom even doing business with George, is significant to
the 'Valley of ashes.'
The introduction to the eyes of Doctor T.J Eckleburg is also a significant part of the
novel as a whole. It is perhaps the centre of the novel's themes on vision. In relation to
historical background, the advertising is a detail from the commercial American culture
of the 1920's, when such a feature would be comprehensible to newly arrived
immigrants with little understanding of English.
On a different level, the eyes of T.J Eckleburg have great significance at the end of
the novel when George Wilson mistakes the eyes for those of God. He makes the
mistake of assuming that the eyes are 'all - seeing,' but as they are not really eyes, the
implication is that the world is godless.
Spectacles reappear later in the novel when Nick comes across a drunken visitor to
Gatsby's party in the library, wearing owl-eyed spectacles. They give him the
appearance of being intelligent and scholarly. This, however, is untrue as he is
impressed by Gatsby's library simply because the books are real....