User:CinnamonCinder

From Encyclopedia Dramatica

This user is a douche bag from that other wiki. Please let him know by fingering his vagina from time to time. kthx. The Big Ol’ Gatsby By: Chuck Rawlings Honors English 11

If the United States of America in the 1920’s were to have plopped down on a psychologist’s couch, the doctor would be in for a very interesting patient with an unhealthy psyche. The “roaring” 20’s were filled with corruption, crime, and the self-centered obsession many citizens had with living out the “American dream.” F. Scott Fitzgerald’s famed literary meditation of the time, “The Great Gatsby,” carefully examines all of these subjects by utilizing tangible, realistic characters who revel in the moral abandon and hedonism of the decade. It is through the travails of these characters that Fitzgerald unleashes his most powerful and effective weapon—symbolism, which dominates the novel, leaves a powerful impression and inspires thought-provoking internal discussion.

Doctor T.J. Eckleburg doesn’t say a single word during the entire novel, but his presence on a faded billboard overlooking the “valley of ashes” separating East and West Egg has a powerful effect. Nick first mentions the billboard in chapter II; he describes Eckleburg’s “blue and gigantic” retinas (27) looking out of “no face,” and his “eyes, dimmed by many paintless days under sun and rain, brood on over the solemn dumping ground” (28). These descriptions create the impression that it represents God or a higher moral power, and though it is the most simplistic meaning that can be gleaned from these descriptions, it is also the most accurate. Whenever Nick mentions it, he normally references both its prominence in the area and its faded, beat-up condition, how it has been “ignored.” This is a perfect correlation to the place of God in American society. God and the moral path of righteousness had been a very omnipresent aspect of American culture dating back to the days of Puritanism of the 1600’s. Every action that was taken by most individuals was done with God in mind and whether He would judge it well. But over time, this presence has faded and been ignored, to the point where little notice is given to the idea of God or any type of moral system. While weakness and corruption has been part of the human experience since the beginning, by the 20’s it had become far more widespread and acceptable. Tom Bucchanan not only engages in an extramarital affair without any care or thought to it being wrong, he actually flaunts it around the city. This is a far cry from a time like the 1600’s, where the character of John Proctor in Arthur Miller’s Puritan-era drama The Crucible is ashamed of having an affair and can’t live it down. The only character who mentions the billboard is Nick, who alludes to it in the narrative any time he is in its presence. This further reinforces the symbolism, as Nick is also the only character who has second thoughts about at least some of his compatriots’ endeavors, and privately admits being “disgusted” at Gatsby’s self-indulgence and the Bucchanans’ wreckless self-indulgence and faux sophistication. The eyes of Eckleburg also happen to be nearby George Wilson’s garage, the place where many of the story’s most selfish and morally reprehensible acts take place; Myrtle’s eyes “wide with jealous terror” (131) upon mistaking Jordan to be Tom’s wife, Tom’s affair with Daisy, the killing of Myrtle by Gatsby and Daisy, etc. The most chilling moment involving the billboard comes when Wilson stares into the eyes while he recalls telling Myrtle “you may fool me, but you can’t fool God.” Clearly, Fitzgerald’s intent in including the eyes was to commentate on the fading presence of God in American society. (< --concluding sentence will change, just a placeholder for now)

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