great gatsby - what makes it such a great novel
...rd of DR T.J. Eckleburg represents the loss of spirituality that looks down on ’the valley of the ashes.’ Through the loss of spirituality we see that money is seen as the new god in the novel and Tom Buchanan is seen to have quiet a lot, because of this we see Myrtle Wilson who lives in ‘The Valley Of the Ashes’ get used by Tom as Myrtle thinks tom will save her from Poverty. Daisy is also seen as corrupt as she leads Gatsby on to believe he has finally achieved his goal of getting her back and even after she refuses him Gatsby still takes the blame for her when Daisy kills Myrtle. “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy — they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made…" this shows the corruption of Tom and Daisy as they have no sense of decency as the create havoc then just hide behind their money and let someone else take the blame. Therefore I agree with EK when he talks about Daisy creating a mess and leaving Gatsby to take the blame. “leaves Gatsby to bear the brunt of the havoc she has wrought.” The Idea of Reality and Illusion is displayed well in this novel with Gatsby and Myrtle being the main 2 people who are effected by this theme. The society of ‘the eggs’ is a materialistic and hedonistic lifestyles that take place with no real meaning. EK’s statement about Daisy - “with the casual cruelty of her class, lets him hope for an instant” I believe what EK is stating here is true. If we look at Gatsby his ultimate goal is to gain the girl of his dreams which in reality is impossible to achieve but Gatsby believes he can get Daisy back, but as EK stated just as Gatsby gets close Daisy destroys his dream and brings him back to reality, as she lets Gatsby believe he has reached his goal then humiliates him in front of Tom, Nick and Jordan. Gatsby believes that if he tries hard enough he can repeat the past, "Can’t repeat the past?…Why of course you can!" this shows how Gatsby believes that he can eventually get Daisy back and get things back to the way they were before. Myrtle is another character who is living in a world of illusion as she believes Tom Buchanan will take her away from ‘the valley of the ashes’ and introduce her to wealth, but as we see Myrtle living in her own fantasy of this happening, we see Tom treats Myrtle like she is nothing, just another object and we realise that Tom doesn’t care for Myrtle at all and is...