In Chapter Eight of The Great Gatsby,
after the accident in which his wife is killed by Gatsby's car, Wilson and his Greek
friend Michaelis stay up all night talking. Wilson reveals to his friend that he has
found a dog leash and confronted Myrtle about having a lover, telling her that she could
not hide her sins from the eyes of God. When the eyes of Dr. Eckleburg are illuminated
by the rising sun, Wilson believes them to be the eyes of God. For, he asserts that
Eckleburg's eyes see all that happens: "God sees everything." Then, Wilson concludes
that God exacts revenge for the killing of Myrtle and he leaves in search of the owner
of the yellow car, the "death car."
It is symbolic of the
moral corruption of the Jazz Age that Dr. Eckleburg, as God, looks down upon a
wastleland, a world devoid of any worth, meaning, or beauty. And, although Gatsby's
world appears prettier than Wilson's, his case is "the service of a vast, vulgar, and
meretricious beauty" that is a gross parallel of the Valley of
Ashes.
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