On the Analysis the Scrutinization of Moral Corruption through Dr. T. J. Ecklebu

Introduction: "F. Scott Fitzgerald is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. " He is the spokesman of the ‘‘lost generation’’. The novel ‘the Great Gatsby’ in question is his representative work which is set in the roaring twenties, the Jazz Age (a termed coined by Fitzgerald). “It was an age of miracles, it was an age of art, it was an age of excess, and it was an age of satire.” People in this age waver and wander with their faith shaken. As depicted in the Great Gagsby, “In summer of 1922, the tempo of the city approached hysteria, stocks reached record peaks and Wall Street boomed in a steady golden roar. The parties were bigger. The shows were broader. The buildings were higher. The morals were looser and the ban on alcohol had backfired, making the liquor cheaper.”People in New York indulge in decadent fun superficially, and in the depth of their heart, they are morally corrupted, thus the theme of this thesis. In the Great Gatsby, Dr. T. J. Eckleburg’s eyes appear now and then, which, actually, is to scrutinize the moral code within his version.

One: about Dr. T. J. Eckleburg’s eyes in the Great Gatsby

Dr. T . J.Eckleburg’s comes from the valley of Ashes. “It was a grotesque place. New York’s dumping ground is halfway between West Egg and the city where the burnt-out coal that powered the booming golden city was discarded by men who moved dimly and already crumbled through the powdery air. This fantastic farm was ever watched by Dr. T. J. Eckleburg, a forgotten oculist whose eyes brooded over it all like the eyes of God.” Dr. T. J. Eckleburg’s seems to be everywhere, watching people all the time. For in the age when lots of people abandon themselves to voluptuous life, there emerge the luxury of chances when some depart from the ethical principle and plunge into depravity. Fitzgerald uses Dr. T. J. Eckleburg’s eyes to help scrutinize the morality in people. They are, as if, God’s eyes who watch people on earth and thus know what they do and who they are. This thesis analyzes the three protagonists in the Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby, Daisy Fay Buchanan and Thomas Buchanan. They are the social elite who lives among “caravansary of billionaire playboy publishers and their blond nurses, heiresses comparing inheritances on Gatsby’s beach, boss losing money at the roulette tables, gossip columnists alongside, gangsters and governors exchanging telephone numbers, film stars, Broadway directors, morality protectors, high school defectors”. Kaleidoscopic cast of characters spill into their life circle. They are luxury in material but barren in spiritual, the typical hedonist deciding on pleasure.

Two: the analysis of the three main characters

1.of Jay Gatsby

The whole novel revolves around Gatsby, a mysterious millionaire. He gives a splendid and magnificent party which is equal to a carnival all weekends and every weekends in the hope that one day his beloved Daisy would come. Five years ago when he was a military officer he fell desperately in love with Daisy who later married a millionaire, Tom. Gatsby is the only soul in this novel who has a feeling heart and sincere smile, which is, at least in tune with what is narrated by one of the main characters, Nick, in this novel. Gatsby is born into a dirt-poor famer’s family. In order to break through the bondage of destiny he runs far, far away to chase his glory future. Eventually he finds his way into the upper class and becomes a real gentleman, only to find that Daisy, the woman he is hopelessly obsessed with, married someone else. For his whole life he is totally possessed by his own world of make-believe, insisting that Daisy never loved her husband and he was and is and will be Daisy’s only love. Daisy tells him she loves him, which Gatsby believes without the slightest suspicion. He deemed that Daisy married Tom because he was poor and Daisy was tired of waiting, so he exerts himself to ascend to the upper class not knowing that Daisy is not the unsophisticated girl as she was. When he finally ushers in an extravagant life that allows him to fulfill every last bit of his potential to meet Daisy and even marry her, he makes it. But Daisy betrays him without his knowledge. He even loses his life because of the crime Daisy committed. Nevertheless, he still holds out hope that Daisy loves him in his last breath. There is an extraordinary gift for hope in Gatsby. Though all his dream crushed in the end, his noble character overshadows the rest.

2. of Daisy Fay Buchanan and Thomas Buchanan

As mentioned above, Daisy is the woman Gatsby is enchanted with. Daisy is a debutante and later socialite when married Tom, a famous football star and millionaire. Daisy is effervescent but frivolous, because she seeks a romantic relationship with Gatsby finding her husband has a mistress outside their marriage. She lost herself in Gatsby’s genuine and absorbed love shamelessly to revenge Tom’s infidelity. Hardly does she ever think of Gatsby, let alone his sincere feeling for her, what she wants is making use of Gatsby to stimulate Tom. Being a former football star, Tom is a commanding man of muscular building. In his own words, “life is something you dominate, if you’re any good.” Unlike most of people who live at life’s disposal, Tom has life in his grasp. He controls, he manipulates, he commands. He involves himself in sex romps with Myrtle, a grocer’s wife and still pursues carnal pleasure in God’s somewhere when his wife gives birth to a baby. Betrayal is something that is exclusive to himself, which accounts for his immediate prompting to action as soon as he finds Daisy has an adulterous relationship with Gatsby. On the one hand, he manages to prove his love to Daisy to his utmost, reminiscing how he carried her down from the Punch Bowl to keep her shoes dry and how they spend the time in Kapiolani, which indeed belong to their happy past when they loved each other. On the other hand, he tries hard to exclude Gatsby from his life circle, asserting that Gatsby is different from people in common with him in the blood. He sniggers at Gatsby’s strenuous effort and ambition as a shyster climbing the social ladder with all the abject means. Besides this, the most deplorably vicious thing is that, he tells Myrtle’s wife it is Gatsby who has an adultery affair with Myrtle and therefore kills her. He knows that Daisy kills Myrtle but he does it on purpose so that Myrtle’s husband shoots Gatsby to death at last. Then the two, Tom and Daisy, exterminate all the obstacles before them and go on a travel to Europe in relief. Not for a moment do they ever show a fraction of confession or compunction about killing a innocent soul. “They are rotten crowd. They are careless people, they smash up things and people and they retreat back into their money and their vast carelessness. ” They are really corruptible who care nothing but themselves.

Conclusion: The picture of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg’s eyes is the cover of the novel, the Great Gatsby, like the God, it observes people everywhen and everywhere. Throughout novel, the image of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg’s eyes emerge now and then. It a kind of scrutinization of the morality. From time to time, Gatsby stares at the green light blinking all night at the end of Daisy’s dock which vanishes gradually together with his physical life. But his innocent soul ascends to heaven due to the virtue in his heart. Whereas Tom and Daisy, they are a ‘soul mate’ to each other because they are the same cruel and cold-hearted people. It also mirrors the people in 1920s, ‘ a lost generation’ who addict to orgastic desire like alcohol and parties with their faith shaken.

Bibliography：

[1]Karolides, Nicholas J.; Bald, Margaret; Sova, Dawn B. (2011). 120 Banned Books: Censorship Histories of World Literature (Second ed.). Checkmark Books. p.499. ISBN?978-0-8160-8232-2.

[2]Hoover, Bob (10 May 2013). “’The Great Gatsby’ still challenges myth of American Dream”. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Retrieved 10 May 2013.

[3]Fitzgerald, F. Scott (1991). Bruccoli, Matthew J., ed. The Great Gatsby. The Cambridge Edition of the Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press. p.184. ISBN?9780521402309. “

[4]Fitzgerald, F. Scott (2006). Bloom, Harold, ed. The Great Gatsby. New York: Chelsea House Publishers. P. 95. ISBN?9781438114545.

[5]Fitzgerald, F. Scott (1997). Tredell, Nicolas, ed. F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby. Columbia Critical Guides. New York: Columbia University Press. p.184. ISBN 9780231115353. ISSN 1559-3002.

[6]F.Scott Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby.Cambridge University Press. 1991.p.liv.

[7]F.Scott Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby.Cambridge University Press. 1991.p.148