The Great Gatsby Response

The eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg, symbolic of a higher power, loom over the Valley of Ashes, ever-present and watchful, passing judgment on not only the immorality of individual characters, but also on the East as a whole. When Nick first notices the painted eyes, he comments, “above the gray land and the spasms of bleak dust which drift endlessly over it, you perceive, after a moment, the eyes of Doctor T.J.

The eyes of T.J. Eckleburg can be seen as if someone is looking over you which is described as, “above the grey land and the spasms of bleak dust which drift endlessly over it, you perceive, after a moment, the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg” (Fitzgerald 23). You can see his eyes in the sky and above land. His eyes are gigantic and he does not have a nose. The eyes do not look out of a face, but out of glasses. T.J. Eckleburg's eyes can be symbolic to God. They are always looking over you like God is. His eyes see everything, as you are constantly being watched. When you look out you can see Eckleburg's eyes just like how you know God is the man above you. Eckleburg's eyes are symbolic to God watching over you.

On the oculist sign "The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg are blue and gigantic" (27). The oculist sign first appears in chapter two when Tom is bringing Nick to meet his mistress. Looking over the city the sign lays watching everything that happens. It contributes to the theme of someone is always watching by being the sign that is in the city Toms mistress lives in.

These eyes, the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg, represent many things to the characters in this novel. He represents, hope, despair, and God, all while staring

“Then as Doctor T.J. Eckleburg’s faded eyes came into sight down the road, I remembered Gatsby’s caution about gasoline. I turned my head as though I had been warned of something behind”(136). The eyes are warning Nick that something terrible is about to happen. Nick thinks that the problem is that the car is low on gas, but as the book continues, it becomes prevalent that the real problem is not gas. George Wilson has found out that Myrtle is having an affair. Soon after Nick makes that observation, Tom also finds out the truth about Gatsby and Daisy. The way the eyes look to the characters shows that their little perfect world is soon going to spiral out of control. The eyes also foreshadow Myrtle’s death because Myrtle comments that the eyes of Eckleburg looked down with “peculiar intensity.” This is right before Myrtle looked down to see the yellow car that would soon enough kill

It’s discovered that Tom is having an affair with Myrtle and she is then killed by Daisy, we see George Wilson fashion one of the most prominent illusions in the novel in which he turns the illusion of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg into an actuality. George and Myrtle Wilson live in the valley of ash. George finds an old billboard that advertises the previously mentioned optometrist. The billboard has gargantuan eyes that are used to represent an omnipotent being, in making this observation; we can see that George is personifying the billboard. After George discovers of Myrtle’s death he seeks guidance from the God like illusion of Eckleburg “God knows what you’ve been doing, everything you’ve been doing,” George believes that Gatsby has been having an affair with Myrtle and also that Gatsby was the one that killed her with his yellow car. George then responds religiously and asks the God like Eckleburg to enact revenge on Gatsby

Among the ash heaps, the dark bridge, and the eyes of Dr. Eckleburg, there is no greater sense of religion. In this purgatory of New York, however, where sins bite and consciences nag, "the giant eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg [keep] their vigil" (131). He watches, as God does, as the worlds of George Wilson and Myrtle, Gatsby, Daisy and Tom collide and dissolve, leaving the tangled mess that had arisen shattered and dead among the debris of his universe.

Jay Gatsby’s illusion is the grandest of all. Gatsby as one character who cannot see

The billboard of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg is Above the valley of ashes and near George Wilson's garage and filling station. As a result of the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg looking down over the valley of ashes they are able to see all that happens below them. This in turn leads George Wilson to believe they represent the eyes of God. By associating Eckleburg’s eyes with the eyes of God he relates them with the power to judge what happens below. As George looks at the Billboard he tells Michaelis how he told Myrtle that, “You may fool me but you can’t fool God!” (Fitzgerald 170). This means Myrtle could hide her affair from him, but she couldn’t hide her affair from the

Find supporting evidence and examples from the novel. STARTING "above the grey land and the spactor T. J. Eckleburg" "The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg are blue and gigantic—their retinas are one yard high. They look out of no face, but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a nonexistent nose" This is how T. J. Eckleburg is first introduced into the story. Dr. T.J. Eckleburg’s eyes represent the corruption of people. His eyes stare down on the characters of the story as they pass through the valley of ashes into the city.

It is clear in Fitzgerald’s description that the eyes of T. J. Eckleburg are displeased upon looking at the remains of the dumping ground. This displeasement could be representative of God’s own displeasement when looking down at the deceit of people such as Tom, who literally cheats on his wife under the eyes of T. J. Eckleburg. Later on when heading towards New York with Tom and Jordan, Nick describes T. J. Eckleburg as keeping vigil, “ ...locality...was vaguely disquieting...over the ashheaps the giant eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg kept their vigil…” (131). It appears as if T. J. Eckleburg is warning Nick of what is to come in the not so distant future. He keeps watch over them in a knowingly way awaiting the weight of their actions to fall upon them.

This shows that Owl Eyes now knows more about Gatsby than most of the people who show up at his party, most of who don’t even see him at all. Owl Eyes demonstrates this knowledge of Gatsby and the story as a whole at the end of the story when he attended Gatsby’s funeral along with Gatsby’s dad and Nick, the only two people really close to Gatsby. The fact that Owl Eyes had known enough about Gatsby to respect him as much as our narrator shows that he knows much about the story, showing that eyesight represents

T.J. Eckleburg to symbolize him as he stares down with his empty eyes on people who have abandoned their spiritual values to achieve the American Dream. Moreover, the eyes also symbolize the corruption of characters throughout the novel. The eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg seem as if though it stares down on the main characters as they pass underneath the billboard when going to New York to commit some sort of unethical acts. Characters who have portrayed this are such as Tom, as he has an adulterous affair there, also this is where Gatsby drives Nick to meet Wolfshiem, the man who fixed the World Series, and this is where Daisy commits a hit and run yet never takes the blame. The eyes seem to frown down on these characters, Wilson uses the billboard of T.J.’s eyes in comparison to the eyes of God.

Another major symbol in this novel is the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg. These are a pair of spectacles painted on an old billboard in the Valley of Ashes. The significant aspect is that this symbol only has meaning when other characters instill it with meaning. The eyes represent a higher power looking over the

Eckleburg symbolize the eyes of God; they are an all-seeing power, a reminder that God is ever-present despite the dwindling morality of the generation. Under the scrutiny of Doctor Eckleburg’s eyes, Wilson tells Myrtle that she “can’t fool God,”; Myrtle has abandoned her morals in the immoral pursuit of Tom, who serves as a beacon of wealth in her meager life in the valley of ashes (Fitzgerald 159). Notably, immediately after this is revealed, Michaelis assures Wilson that the eyes of T.J. Eckleburg are just “an advertisement,” a further nod to the notion that capitalism now runs the world; therefore, money is the only source of power, and, in striving towards that power, people relinquish their morals (Fitzgerald 158). Through all of this, Fitzgerald is implying that, in the absence of God, there is no sense of “right” and “wrong”; self-interest drives the world with infidelity, bootlegging, and recklessness running rampant without