THE EYES OF DR. ECKLEBURG

I just finished studying the book for A level last year(best book i ever read,but thats neither here nor there),and I came to the conclusion that they were supposed to represent the eyes of a faded religion, or at least of society's increasing abandonment of morales that Fitzgerald saw to be such a prominent issue in 'jazz age' America.

I think thats the most popular perception, but then there's always room for more.

I'm studying this book for my tenth grade english class. I have to say it is one of the first school books that I have really loved. My friends and I were actually talking about the eyes at lunch today and came to the conclusion that the eyes represent god. They are all seing and all the major drama goes around that sign.

The age is so spiritually desolate that a local man mistakes the eyes (what are essentually capitalist symbols) for the eyes of God.

as stated they are supposed to be god like. Watching over the valley of the ashes. He sees everything. Even at one point in the book Mr. wilson tells his wife that he may not see what goes one, but God does. And later after Wilson is being comforted by Micheles(or something like that) and i cant remember what wilson says but he says something about god and is looking at the billboard

The claustrophobic, paranoid, but honest answer to what the eyes of Dr. Eckleburg really mean is simply to make you wonder what they mean. In wondering what is means to be watched, or wondering who it is that is watching you, you automatically revisit every moment you feel guilty about, every moment that you did something wrong or that you witnessed something wrong and did nothing about it. It is both Big Brother and God, or whoever it is that you fear the most. Being watched automatically calls to your sense of guilt over whatever it is that you have done. In Gatsby, it is Nick's awareness that a lot of unsettling things are occurring and he is doing nothing to stop them. Fitzgerald also wishes to make you uncomfortably shift in your seat and wonder who has witnessed your "less than proud" moments, and to feel judged by them.

the valley of ashes represents the abandoned morals of society. it's the place where Myrtle and Tom meet up, where myrtle dies, etc. the eyes of the doctor see it all. like what George said, "you may fool me, but you can't fool God."

McKey and Marjorie for ANTM Cycle 11!

HEROES

They are supposed to represent the eyes of God. A sort of myopic, deist God, removed from the comings and goings of the mortals beneath, rich and poor alike.

But a witness to those same comings and goings, nevertheless.

The ash heaps can certainly be seen as a reference to T.S. Eliot's "Wasteland", the state of society that existed in the early 20th century, with its changing values that result in uncertainty. The sign exists among the ash heaps. Yes, it reprresents the eyes of God. Wilson says as much. But the sign is beat up, deteriorated, a sign of the old hopes of an occulist. And so, the moral certainty of an all-seeing God is seen as a remnant of the past. A simple man, such as Wilson, with his absolute views of right and wrong, might see the symbolic eyes as God. But everyone else just sees a deteriorating sign that's irrelevant to current times. The sign dominated the view from the garage, so Myrtle Wilson would have seen the sign as symbolic for her condition in life, which she considered a failure. To escape her situation, which she considered a prison, she would have to "repudiate" the eyes/judgment of God--forsaking her marriage and the absolutist values of a divine point of view.