Symbols of The Great Gatsby
The Great Gatsby is a book about class, wealth, and social standing. Nick Carroway is an educated young man from Minnesota. After going to school at Yale and joining the army to fight in WWI, Nick moves out to the east coast to learn the bond business. Nick moves to West Egg, a part of Long Island mostly inhabited by the newly rich. Nick’s next-door neighbor is one Jay Gatsby. Gatsby is extremely wealthy and is famous for the extravagant parties he throws. Gatsby is obsessed with a woman who lives across the lake, in East Egg; the woman is an old love of Gatsby’s and also Nick’s cousin. The woman’s name is Daisy Buchanan and has no idea that Gatsby lives across the lake. Daisy is married to Tom Buchanan, a man of great wealth and social standing. Tom is very arrogant and hypocritical. When Tom discovers that Daisy and Gatsby may be having an affair, he wants to kill Gatsby. This is very hypocritical because at the same time Tom is having an affair with a woman, Myrtle, from the valley of ashes, an industrial wasteland situated between West Egg and New York. There are many symbols that F. Scott Fitzgerald uses in “The Great Gatsby”. The green light at the end of Daisy’s dock, the giant eyes of T.J. Eckleb
Owl Eyes symbolizes what people think of Gatsby. Owl Eyes, is a sort of drunken philosopher that is found by Nick in Gatsby’s library at one of the extravagant parties. Owl Eyes is standing in front of a wall of books just staring at them in amazement that they are real (50). The fact that Owl Eyes first thinks that the books aren’t real symbolizes that people may think that Gatsby himself isn’t “real” and may not be telling the whole truth about himself. Gatsby was always throwing exuberant parties for people he didn’t even know. Owl Eyes tells us that most people were brought to Gatsby’s parties (50). Owl Eyes is one of the few that show up at Gatsby’s funeral and responds, “Blessed are the dead that the rain falls on” and “the poor son of a bitch” (183). Another important symbol that F. Scott Fitzgerald uses are the eyes of T.J. Eckleburg, a giant billboard in the valley of ashes. “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” (27). The eyes look out over the valley of ashes and symbolize an almighty god watching over everything immoral and disdainful that happens in between West
Some topics in this essay:
West Egg,
Owl Eyes,
Scott Fitzgerald,
Nick Gatsby,
TJ Eckleburg,
East Egg,
Daisy Gatsby,
Eyes Gatsby’s,
Gatsby Gatsby,
Egg York,
valley ashes,
owl eyes,
west egg,
scott fitzgerald,
green light,
“the gatsby”,
social moral decay,
extravagant parties,
eyes doctor,
doctor tj,
egg york,
light daisy’s dock,
west egg valley,
west egg york,
egg valley ashes,
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Approximate Word count = 867
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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