"But above the gray land and the spasms of bleak dust which drift endlessly over it, you perceive, after a moment, the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg. The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg are blue and gigantic—their retinas are one yard high. They look out of no face, but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a non-existent nose. Evidently some wag of an oculist set them there to fatten his practice in the borough of Queens, and then sank down himself into eternal blindness, or forgot them and moved away" (Page 20).
"I followed him over a low whitewashed railroad fence, and we walked back a hundred yards along the road under Doctor Eckleburg’s persistent stare" (Page 21).
"Then as Doctor T. J. Eckleburg’s faded eyes came into sight down the road, I remembered Gatsby’s caution about gasoline" (Page 94).
"That locality was always vaguely disquieting, even in the broad glare of afternoon, and now I turned my head as though I had been warned of something behind. Over the ashheaps the giant eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg kept their vigil, but I perceived, after a moment, that other eyes were regarding us with peculiar intensity from less than twenty feet away" (Page 95).
"Standing behind him, Michaelis saw with a shock that he was looking at the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg, which had just emerged, pale and enormous, from the dissolving night. “God sees everything,” repeated Wilson. “That’s an advertisement,” Michaelis assured him" (Page 123).
In The Great Gatsby, the eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg is a giant billboard of eyes without a face that hovers over the gray landscape that is the Valley of Ashes. It seems as though F. Scott Fitzgerald got his inspiration from optometrist shop signs, as shown below.
The billboard is supposed to be in the middle of Queens near George Wilson's garage, along the road that stretches from the West Egg to Manhattan. That road is Northern Boulevard, but that giant billboard does not current exist. Perhaps, there was an optometrist store there in the 1920s, but that would not have made sense because it was dusty barren land that was filled with ashes.
The image of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg is a pair of giant disembodied eyes which are covered in yellow spectacles. The rest of the face is not pictured, and the billboard is weathered and covered in paint. The eyes are creepy and represent a omniscient, displeased observer. The eyes are inanimate objects with a gazing warning that something is wrong with society. They point to a higher authority whose watchful supervision seems to be accompanied by judgment. The eyes of the billboard are symbolic of a watchful God overseeing society living without an ethical and moral compass, passing judgment over an increasingly materialistic world.
On a daily basis, George Wilson stares at the billboard in the same manner that Jay Gatsby stares at the green light at the end of Daisy's dock. The eyes are symbolic of an ever-present and all-seeing God.
This is my original drawing by myself, Mason Yeoh. My inspiration for this drawing were the stills from the 2013 movie. I used my iPad to create this drawing.
