The Great Gatsby Ch. 2 Reading Journal

The Great Gatsby: Chapter 2 (pp. 23-38)

Chapter 2 begins with Nick describing a desolate area between the East and West Eggs he calls the valley of the ashes, which is the dump holding all of New York City’s waste.  One day, Tom insists on Nick going to meet his mistress, Myrtle Wilson, whose auto-mechanic husband, George Wilson, apparently does not know about their affair.  They meet up with Myrtle later at Tom’s cramped New York appartment where they decide to throw a party with Myrtle’s sister, Catherine, and their neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. McKee.  Nick gets drunk and wants to leave out of disgust of their conversations but is fascinated and is pulled to stay.  Tom and Myrtle begin to have a fight over whether it is appropriate for Myrtle to speak of Daisy; Myrtle begins repeating Daisy’s name in spite of Tom and he hits her in the face and breaks her nose.

Myrtle Wilson:

“She was in her middle thirties, and faintly stout, but she carried her surplus flesh sensuously… there was an immediately perceptible vitality about her as if the nerves of her body were continually smoldering.” (p. 25)

Myrtle Wilson is a selfish, materialistic, and fake adulterer.  One thing about her character that could be seen as positive is her “immediately perceptible vitality” but, as Nick describes later, around other people “the intense vitality that had been so remarkable in the garage was converted into impressive hauteur,” (p. 30).  She doesn’t love her husband George and says she only married him because she “thought he was a gentleman” and “thought he knew something about breeding…” (p. 34).  Catherine says “Tom’s the first sweetie she ever had,” which is ironic because his racist and violent manorisms don’t portray as much of a “sweetie,” (p. 35).  Her purpose in the novel is to show a contrast with Daisy and her own husband and to show her compatibility with Tom.

Significant Quote:

“Evidently some wild wag of an oculist set them there to fatten his practice in the borough of Queens, and then sank down himself into eternal blindness, or forgot them and moved away.  But his eyes, dimmed a little by  many paintless days under sun and rain, brood over the solemn dumping ground.” (p. 24)

This quote stuck out to me because it addressed two major symbols in the book: the valley of ashes and Doctor Eckleburg’s eyes.  The valley of ashes is the dumping ground of the city; it is the waste that is left over by its inhabitants.  A large figure is overlooking the dump through spectacles.  Doctor Eckleburg represents some greater God-like figure looking down on the results of the New York society.  When it talks about sinking into “eternal blindness” and “dimmed” eyes, it is like saying that God has lost hope and has given up on the human race he is watching over.

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