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When discussing The Great Gatsby, people often reference the eyes of Dr. Eckleberg looking down over the Valley of Ashes, but while I was looking into this novel in terms of surveillance, I came across a quote that stood out. In chapter seven, Tom, Nick, and Jordan were in a separate car from Gatsby and Daisy, and while they passed through the valley Nick narrates, “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”(Fitzgerald, 111). There are two different forms of surveillance touched on in this instance, the first of which are the eyes of Eckleberg, but surveillance by higher powers is talked about frequently in reference to that. What I want to draw attention to is the second part of the quote. The “other eyes” were human, we later learn, Myrtle’s. This is a good depiction of how people surveil and impact each other, because Myrtle watched the car drive by and assumed her lover was showing off his wife, which made her jealous and ultimately led to her untimely death.
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I would say that one of the primary disadvantages is the idea that “All men (this is indisputable), absolutely all men, estimate all things, whatever, by their physiognomy, their exterior temporary superficies” (Page 15 PDF Printing, Lavater). I would however like to argue with the statement that this idea is indisputable, while people often judge others based on appearance, not everyone is so critical as to pick apart another’s appearance and make a judgement about character by that.
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I chose Figure 1 from plate VIII because we are discussing physiognomy and the way he looked stood out to me. In my opinion he looks kind of like a monk, and that idea may just be formed by the way he’s balding, but he also has kind and wise eyes, which sort of drew me in. Lavater’s description of his mentality from appearance is discussing that this man has an “active mind” and “any object quickly seized by, and firmly fixed in, the memory”. All of this information was found between pages 92 and 93. I find the difference between this one and the ones that don’t adopt new opinions easily, a bit interesting, because in my opinion, any of them could be open to new ideas or people.