Today we are going to discuss chapter 2. We will also look at chapter 3.
Chapter 2
Settings: Valley of Ashes and New York City
Valley of Ashes is both an allusion (to T.S. Eliot’s The
Waste Land – a poem that refers back to World War I, and turns London into a
city of the dead, spiritually dead) and a symbol. The Valley of Ashes is were “dreams” die and
the spiritually dead live.
In the Valley of Ashes another symbol resides: The eyes of
Doctor T. J. Eckleburg. A symbol to eyes
of God (though God is dead).
In the Valley of Ashes live George and Myrtle Wilson.
George Wilson is a sick, anemic man. He is of the working class and he has failed
in life. He owns a poor little gas
station. He hopes – or dreams – of
buying Tom’s car so that he can sell it for a profit and move west. As one point in this chapter, Myrtle “smiled
slowly and, walking through her husband as if he were a ghost, shook hands with
Tom…”
Myrtle Wilson is Tom’s “girl”. Tom is using her for a fling. Tom has rented Myrtle an apartment in
Manhattan (New York) and in this apartment Myrtle dreams. Her dream is to escape her working class life
and become wealthy and live like the wealthy.
On the way to the apartment, Tom buys Myrtle a dog. This “dog” will be an allusion (keep this in
mind for the end of the novel). Myrtle
in reality is Tom’s dog. There’s a
reference about a dog collar later in the chapter. Who is this collar for?
At Myrtles (or Tom’s) apartment a party happens. Myrtle invited up the Mckees and her sister
Catherine.
Mr. McKee is a photographer – a poor photographer.
Catherine is around thirty, slender, and “worldly”
(not). She’s a gossip.
Catherine gives the first rumor about Gatsby – “he’s a
nephew or a cousin of Kaiser Wilhelm’s.”
Catherine also presents a lie about Tom and Daisy’s
marriage: “Neither of them can stand the person they’re married to” (this in
reference to Tom and Myrtle). “It’s
really his wife that’s keeping them apart.
She’s a Catholic and they don’t believe in divorce.”
Myrtle, of course, challenges (after an afternoon of drinks)
Tom’s marriage by yelling “Daisy Daisy Daisy” over and over. Tom, showing her that Myrtle is beneath Daisy
and that his marriage isn’t to be question, breaks her nose.
New York City is the place in this book where dreams run
into reality.
Versailles (what happens there) is mentioned a few times in
this chapter as is Town Tattle and Simon Called Peter
Homework to write sentences will all the vocabulary words:
1)
Wan
2)
Prodigality
3)
Feigned
4)
Languidly
5)
Colossal
6)
Complacency
7)
Levity
8)
Extemporizing
9)
Supercilious
10)
Infinitesimal
11)
Fractiousness
12) Incredulously
13) Contemptuously
14) Incurably
15) Cardinal
16) Pasquinade
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