the great gatsby, chapter 2

1) The Valley of Ashes symbolizes the death and failure of the American Dream. People who live there are already destroyed! And everyone wants to get out of there. Mr. and Mrs. Wilson live there.  

2) The Eyes of T.J. Eckleburg are the eyes of God, which is an irony. If it is the God he has died or doesn’t care.

3) Nick describes George Wilson as spiritless, anæmic and faintly handsome. (He has blonde hair and blue eyes.) Mrs. Wilson seems to have a lot more spirit than Mr. Wilson, she seems to be more “playful”, which she also is. He symbolizes the death of the American Dream because he lives in the Valley of Ashes.

4) New York City is the place where dreams meet reality. Myrtle realizes that Tom will never leave Daisy for her. Tom also breaks her nose.

5) Town Tattle is a gossip magazine from the 1920s. The motif is gossip, roumers a lot of will be spread!

6) The McKees are the ones that live in the apartment below Tom (where he has his affairs with Myrtle). Mrs. KcKee takes pictures, but he (they) sound a little desperate to me, because Mrs. MeKee talks a lot about it, and that Mr. MeKee would love to take pictures of Myrtle. He needs an entry in to his business. 

7) She likes to be the center of attention, and has to be in every conversation. I bet she is a gossip girl, since she is the only one sober while they are talking about private stuff such as Myrtle’s old “marriage” in Europe.

8) When she married George (Mr. Wilson) she thought he was a gentleman, but he was just "lieing" (he failed). Now she can’t to anything because she is Catholic and doesn’t believe in divorce. Tom is the one who said she couldn't get a divorce. 

9) I think Myrtle likes to pretend that she is upper class because it makes her feel worth more. It reflects person vs. self? Nick describes her as “…middle thirties, and faintly stout, but she carried her surplus flesh sensuously as some woman can. Her face, above a spotted dress of dark blue crepe-de-chin, contained no facet or gleam of beauty, but there was an immediately perceptible vitality about her as if the nerves of her body were continually smoldering.” When they are both going to his apartment in NY, she wants Tom to buy her a dog, more specific and Airedale. Wealthy people owned Airedale dogs!

10) Tom wont buy the Airedale for her, but instead he buys a mutt for her. It shows her how little he cares about her, the mutt is more at the same “level” as Myrtle. Myrtle thinks of the dog the same way as Tom thinks of woman. Trash!

11) Cathrine went to Monte Carlo with a friend, where they spent $1200 in two days in the private rooms. It shows us that she is naive.

12) The first rumor about Gatsby is “well, they say he’s a nephew or a cousin of Kaiser Wilhelm’s. That’s where all his money comes from.” Kaiser Wilhelm was a German emperor and King of Prussia (Latvian, Lithuania, Poland were countries under Germany) from 1888 to 1918, when WW1 ended.

13) “I married him because I thought he was a gentleman. I thought he knew something about breeding, but he was fit to lick my shoe” It means that Mr. Wilson failed. He is not the perfect gentleman, neither he is rich. 

14) “Making a short deft movement, Tom broke her nose with his open hand. “ It happened because Mrs. Wilson kept saying Daisy's name over and over again, without being allowed to do it. It shows us how little he cares about Myrtle. He treats her like she is nothing but trash. He doesn't see her as a human, but more like an object that he can do whatever he wants to with.