This study will examine F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, specifically focusing on the novels negative portrayal of American values through his depiction of self and society, the American dream, and class differences.
Goldhurst writes that the novel is an example of works which "clarify the process by which one fictionist of the era derived from his reading the materials of his art, and how those materials crystallize brilliantly an episode in actual national experience" (Goldhurst 36). Goldhurst argues that the example of the character of T.J. Eckleburg is used by Gatsby to illustrate the social milieu of Fitzgerald's era, including "the pronounced interest in the aspirations of the different classes (and)... their motives and values" (Goldhurst 36). The Eckleburg character is used symbolically to demonstrate the emptiness of those values.
Eckleburg is introduced in relationship to the background of the "valley of ashes" which serves the book's theme concerning the Waste Land aspect of the novel's portrayal of the results of the disillusionment inevitably tied to the American Dream. In fact, the American Dream itself is shown to be an illusory bubble full of false values.
Eckleburg's eyes are what dominates the landscape in the novel, wearing glasses on a billboard bearing the caption, "Doctor T.J. Eckleburg." It is an advertisement, but it is also a symbol: "Fitzgerald suggests that Eckleburg's brooding presence has a larger significance, that the gigantic eyes symbolize some implacable modern deity" (Goldhurst 37). Another character -- Owl Eyes -- is shown to be a person comparable to Eckleburg in some way, specifically in his watchfulness. Eckleburg and Owl Eyes are characters watching the deterioration of not only the physical landscape but the spiritual landscape as well. They "see" what the other characters do not see, particularly the lies in the American Dream, the differences so starkly present betwe...