Chapter 2

In this chapter, Nick and Tom go to New York to meet up with Tom’s lover, Myrtle. To do so, they go through the valley of ashes, a place of emptiness, poverty, and desolation. The valley, located between New York and the West Egg symbolizes the moral decay hidden behind the beautiful lives lived in the Eggs. The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg, on an old billboard in the valley, imply that everyone is being watched and that nobody can get away with anything; they represent the eyes of God staring down on the people.

Tom, Myrtle and Nick go to the apartment Tom keeps in New York for his affair, and have a party attended by Catherine, Myrtle’s sister, and some neighbors, the McKees. Nick is repulsed by what he sees, nevertheless fascinated at the same time. These contradictions that Nick has suggest that he has not yet made up his mind about how he feels toward the Buchanans, Gatsby, and life in New York.

Tom shows a side of him that wasn’t known before in this chapter. On top of having an affair with another woman, Tom taunts Wilson, Myrtle’s husband, who has done him no harm, and violently attacks Myrtle to keep his authority over her. It is clearly seen that he has no guilt for being such an immoral person. Perhaps Tom reflects some aspects of Fitzgerald’s life, who was an alcoholic, got into fights constantly with his wife and cheated on her when she was in the hospital.

However, the fact that Nick does not once say or do anything against the affair, or that he doesn’t think about Daisy or consider her feelings about this situation makes his morality questionable.