When Dr. T.J. Eckleburg was first introduced to us in the story, I didn’t grasp onto the symbol which “he” portrayed. The book states that “… above the gray land.. you perceive, after a moment, the eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg” (23). Overlooking the valley of ashes, Eckleburg’s blue, gigantic, one yard high retina’s look out of no face- instead “from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a non-existent nose… but his eyes, dimmed a little by many paintless days under sun and rain, brood on over the solemn dumping ground” (24). This, here, was what suggested that Doctor T.J. Eckleburg symbolized God, in that he was looking over the valley of ashes.
Throughout the book, Eckleburg is kept in mind when characters committed sin, such as when Wilson found out that his wife had committed infidelity, and then when she got hit by Daisy. Wilson got together with Michaelis (the witness of the death of Myrtle) and told him what he had said to Myrtle. Wilson had said “she might fool me but she couldn’t fool god…” (159). After Wilson said that, Michaelis turned around and found that he “was looking at the eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg, which had just emerged, pale and enormous, from the dissolving night” (160). The symbolism couldn’t be any more obvious – right after Wilson had talked about God seeing everything, Michaelis turned and looked right into the eyes of Eckleburg, as if to look right into the eyes of God. Symbols of God and Heaven were present all throughout the book; with Doctor T.J. Eckleburg being just one of them.