Summary

• Nick and Tom are on their way to New York City by train when they pass the Valley of Ashes
• the Valley of Ashes is a gray wasteland between West Egg and New York City where the ashes of New York are dumped
• people living there shovel up those ashes or work at gas stations
• a huge billboard oversees the scenery: two huge blue eyes wearing glasses look down on the valley, displaying the advertisement of a long-gone eye doctor named T.J. Eckleburg
• Tom leaves the train at a stop in the Valley of Ashes and Nick follows him, both head to George Wilson‘s garage
• the lover who called Tom during the dinner with Nick, Daisy and Jordan is actually the wife of George Wilson named Myrtle
• George Wilson is described as having an ashen, lifeless overall look despite him being handsome
• Myrtle instead radiates with a desperate vitality, she has a sensuous figure and wears a blue dress
• Tom talks to Wilson about selling his car, clearly taunting him, and afterwards, he demands that Myrtle follows him to the train
• the three head to New York City to the Morningside Heights apartment where Tom acts out his affair with Myrtle
• at the apartment, they have a party with Myrtle‘s sister Catherine and the couple McKee
• here, Nick hears some first rumours about Gatsby‘s history from Catherine: Gatsby is said to be a nephew or cousin of the German ruler Kaiser Wilhelm
• Mr. McKee and his wife are represented as a terrible couple: he is pale and feminine and Mrs. McKee is shrill
• all of them drink excessively and Nick says that this is the second time in his life where he got drunk
• Nick wants to leave because he is repelled by the ostentatious way the others behave although he is also fascinated by them
• the more Myrtle drinks, the more obnoxious she grows and she teases Tom about his wife Daisy, chanting her name
• Tom gets furious and breaks her nose, ending the party
• Nick leaves with Mr. McKee and takes the train back to Long Island at 4 am in the morning

Function

• introduction of the symbolic character of the Valley of Ashes
  
  • a grey place of absolute poverty and hopelessness, home to the only poor characters in the novel
  • symbolizes the moral decay hidden behind the beautiful facades of West and East Egg and hints at the possibility of an ugly character behind all those ornamentations and charms of the Eggs
  • was created by industrial dumping and is hence a by-product of capitalism
• another symbol: the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg
  
  • actually, they do not have a fixed or explicitly mentioned symbolic value in this chapter, the reader is free to interpret it
  • they hauntingly as well as enigmatically brood on over the solemn dumping ground
  • they might represent the eyes of God who stares down at the moral decay of the Roaring 20s
  • the fact that the color has faded might symbolize the extent to which humans have lost their connection to God
• another setting (and also a motif) is explored: New York City
  
  • stands in contrast to the Valley of Ashes due to its loudness, garishness, abundance and glittering buildings
  • Nick considers New York to be fascinating yet repulsive, dazzling to look at yet missing a moral center
  • Tom has to keep his affair with Myrtle discreet in the Valley of Ashes, but can show it publicly in New York City without it being scandalous
• the party contrasts the different characters
  
  • Nick is undecided and reserved because he feels morally repelled by the party but is too fascinated to leave
  • it hints at the fact that Nick feels a constant ambivalence towards the East Coast and its inhabitants in general (Gatsby, the Buchanans)
  • Tom is shown as hypocritical and his inability to exercise restraint since he does not feel guilty for cheating with Myrtle yet still, he feels the need to keep her within bounds
  • Tom abuses his social status and physical strength to dominate the people he connects with: he taunts George and has an affair with his wife, brutally lashes out to defend his authority over MYrtle
  • George Wilson instead is handsome and morally upright, yet does not have money, power or vitality
  • the party is also used to establish and emphasize the mysterious aura around Gatsby - everyone knows him although no one has any clear information about his background