The Great Gatsby Chapter 2

The Valley of Ashes
A desolate area of land between West Egg and New York City
In this industrial wasteland, through which the commuter train must pass, everything is covered with dust, smoke, and ashes.

Dr. T.J. Eckelberg
The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg are blue and gigantic - their irises are one yard high.
They look out of no face, but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a nonexistent nose.

George Wilson
Nick followed Tom over a low whitewashed railroad fence, and back a hundred yards along the road under Doctor Eckleburg's persistent stare.
The only building in sight was a small block of yellow brick sitting on the edge of the waste land
One of the three shops it contained was…
Repairs.
GEORGE B. WILSON.
Cars bought and sold.
A blond, spiritless man,
anemic, and faintly
handsome.

Myrtle Wilson
A thickish woman, in the middle thirties, and faintly stout, but carried her surplus flesh sensuously as some women can.
sensuous, with an air of vitality

Catherine
Myrtle’s sister
A slender, worldly girl of about thirty, with a solid, sticky bob of red hair, and a complexion powdered milky white.
When she moved about there was an incessant clicking as innumerable pottery bracelets jingled up and down upon her arms.

The McKees
Neighbors from downstairs
Mr. McKee was a pale, feminine man
He was a photographer
She was shrill, languid, handsome and horrible.
She loudly complained to everyone present about her husband George

Whiskey & Gossip
“They say Gatsby’s a nephew or a cousin of Kaiser Wilhelm's. That's where all his money comes from.”
“Neither of them can stand the person they're married to.”
Kaiser Wilhelm: the last German Emperor and King of Prussia, ruling both the German Empire and Prussia from June 1888 to November 1918.

More Whiskey & Gossip
Catherine leaned close to me and whispered in my ear: "Neither of them can stand the person they're married to."
"When they do get married," continued Catherine, "they're going West to live for a while until it blows over."
"She really ought to get away from him," resumed Catherine to me. "They've been living over that garage for eleven years. And tom's the first sweetie she ever had."

The Party’s Over
Nick describes himself at the party as being "within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life."
The spell of the party, however, is broken around midnight when Tom and Myrtle argue loudly over her talking about Daisy.
Tom insists that she not even mention his wife's name.
When Myrtle taunts him by shouting, "Daisy! Daisy!...I'll say it whenever I want to," Tom answers by striking her face and breaking her nose.
Nick's sense of moral order is repulsed by the violence, and he leaves in an alcoholic stupor, finally catching the 4:00 a.m. train back to West Egg.

The Great Gatsby Chapter 2

by CoolTeacher on Aug 29, 2009

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