The Great Gatsby Chapter Two....

Chapter Two

·         At the start of chapter two a scenery is set ‘The valley of ashes’ a morbid setting far from the Fashionable palaces of East Egg, which sets the contrast between glamour and a ‘certain desolate area of land’ as Nick so describes it.

·         You also get how the contrast starts to make the reader aware of the descriptive surrounding narrated by Nick.

·         The starting of chapter two is just very morbid, with the use of colour to describe his surroundings, you get to see how everything changes from being in ‘Deep Summer’ in Chapter One to how everything seems grey, ‘a fantastic farm, where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens’.

·         Everything suddenly changes in mood.

·         ‘The Eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg’, which Nick emphasises within the story and object personified, he makes the sign board seem so real in the way he described it, as if the eyes are always watching everybody, but that he gives it human significance – ‘ But His Eyes’.

·         The point where we find that Tom has a mistress – which tells us that wealth alone doesn’t make person happy.

·         Tom’s mistress is the wife of a mechanic, which is an important factor as it shows how materialism easily fits in- a person easily impressed by riches. Mechanics would have at that time had to scrape by and not afford that which Tom possesses.

·         But that even in being with the mechanics wife he is still has carries his dominating character - ‘No he doesn’t,’ said Tom coldly. ‘And if you feel that way about it, maybe I’d better sell it somewhere else after all.’

·         you also get the sense that myrtle as a women has authority over her husband when she orders him,- as women of that time would get servants to do it for them if well off, or they’d do the chores in the house themselves if not so well off –‘Get some chairs, why don’t you, so somebody can sit down’. ‘Oh sure,’ agreed Wilson hurriedly.’

·         Also contradictory to the events happening where he says ‘He’s so dumb he doesn’t even know he’s alive.’ And yet even after saying that he still ‘Waited for her down the road and out of sight.’

·         We also get the feeling that Myrtle seems to have power in the sense that she gets whatever she desires in chapter Two as she becomes the one who decides what she wants.