The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald

Myrtle yearns to be with Tom and live in his wealth but is prevented from doing so by Tom and Daisy. For instance, when Daisy tries to leave Tom for Gatsby, Tom does not exactly dismiss Myrtle, “…but there is no question that she would eventually be discarded” (Donaldson). Myrtle is so infatuated with Tom, she forgot that he can just as well choose Daisy over her. He has the upper hand, as a rich man with control over women especially when it comes to his relationships. While to Tom, Myrtle’s gender has made her just one of his possessions, to Myrtle, Tom’s rich and high status as a man has made him her only path to a higher class. Due to her infatuation with Tom, she often becomes jealous and possessive when she finds a threat to their relationship. Myrtle is so overcome with desire for Tom that she cannot stand the thought of him with another women. Even when she sees Tom in the car with Jordan Baker, Myrtle’s, “… eyes, wide with jealous terror, were fixed not on Tom, but on Jordan Baker, whom she too to be his wife” (Fitzgerald 125). Myrtle is so convinced that Tom is hers, when in reality, she is really Tom’s. Myrtle has almost forgotten the fact that as an inferior women, she has little control over the situation. The reality is that Tom was in control of the relationship and used Myrtle for his lustrous desires. Tom’s rejection of Myrtle causes her to become overrun with jealousy. In

Holding the belief that she would become part of the aristocracy, Myrtle involves herself into immoral actions in order to achieve her biggest dream. She holds a great desire to have a life that is luxurious. It is this dream of becoming rich or taking the taste of the wealthy material world and luxurious lifestyle that push her to start an affair with Tom. She starts this love affair because Tom is a representative of that society that she wants to be part of. By being with Tom in a relationship, she feels as if she is already member of the aristocracy that is Myrtle’s greatest happiness. Even though he mistreats her and hits Myrtle, she compromises with these. Therefore her American Dream of having a better life and being financially successful brings the decay of her character. Despite being a mistress for Tom, she is able to endure even these mistreatments that show her real position in Tom’s life and the society after committing the act of adultery that is a position of the lowest level of the society because she is both poor and a dishonest

Myrtle is Tom's mistress, which allows her play the role of a well educated wealthy woman. Myrtle is deceptive and untrustworthy because she is married, and is having a secret affair with Tom buchanan. The very first time we meet her in the book “she smiled slowly and, walking through her husband as if he were a ghost, shook hands with Tom, looking him flush in the eye”(26). By having an affair with Tom she is betraying her husband, and she seems to have no remorse about it. Myrtle is described as being “ faintly stout, but she carries her surplus flesh sensuously as some woman can. Her face, [...] contained no facet or glean of beauty”(25). From her physical description the reader can infer that she is not very nice and standoffish. She treats

Myrtle Wilson is obsessed with leaving her poor life behind her by being with Tom but unlike Gatsby, her attempts are fruitless. She attempts to make herself seem an upper class person like when she changed her dress before the party in chapter two. She believes her husband is beneath her and talks of all low statuses as if she isn’t one of them. "I told that boy about the ice." Myrtle raised her eyebrows in despair at the shiftlessness of the lower orders. "These people! You have to keep after them all the time." (42)

Myrtle is married to George Wilson, a financially unstable gas station owner and mechanic in the Valley of the Ashes, whom she thought might get rich one day to help her get into the upper social class and bear important children with, “ I married him because I thought he was a gentleman... I thought he knew something about breeding, but he wasn’t fit lick my shoe.”(pg.34). Myrtle is a woman that is ashame of being a lower class and believes that she belongs within the upper social class and so she committed adultery with Tom Buchanan, a very wealthy married man who lives in the East Egg to fulfill her American dream of becoming wealthy and to escape from the poverty of the Valley of Ashes. Myrtle is so selfish and greedy that she doesn’t care for what her husband might think, she doesn’t even care for herself;

Myrtle also adds to this stigma. She longs for a life that is fun and glamorous, but reality is she is the wife of a pump mechanic, meaning she will never have access to mobility in class or status. She is a lower class woman, which led her to engage in an affair with Tom Buchanan; it is the closest she will come to feeling higher up socially. Myrtle will do just about anything to be a part of the upper class despite the consequences. There was even a point in time when Tom physically hits her, breaking her nose and yet she still stayed with him just to continue lavishing in this fantasy she so eagerly wanted to become real (Fitzgerald, pg 37). That scene and the dynamic of her and Tom represent the subordination of the lower class and the mistreatment of women within the lower class.

Myrtle is very demanding, just like Tom, and she’s also married. The reason why Myrtle is having an affair is simply because she did not marry a wealthy man, Tom was the opposite of that, he was very wealthy. She wanted to be wealthy and the only way she would get this satisfaction would be getting with someone even if it meant leaving her husband and treating him like an aunt. “I knew right away I made a mistake.. I married him because I thought he was a gentleman.

It is irrelevant to Myrtle that what she gained comes through questionable means. Another example of why Myrtle belonged in the lower class would be when Tom brutally

Then he meets Myrtle Wilson. Myrtle is a lower-class woman, who is the opposite of Daisy, she is not very bright or beautiful, and she is Tom Buchanan’s mistress. She is married to George Wilson a submissive and faithful man, the exact opposite of Tom. Myrtle is looking for a dominant and powerful man, who can help her get into the upper class. Tom likes Myrtle Wilson because he can control and impress her with everything he does, and even though Tom is abusing her Myrtle still loves him. She knows she is out of both Tom’s and the social circle he revolves in’s league, but she hopes desperately and pathetically to fit

Myrtle is described as a “faintly stout” woman who “carrie[s] her surplus flesh sensuously”, a woman who in defiance of her class is “continually smoldering”, projecting herself as one leading a superior life, (25). She’s married to a struggling mechanic named George, who despite his unabating love for her, is seen as a “ghost” and someone she can order around as her own personal servant, due to his inability to truly provide for her the way she wants—materialistically. She even goes as far to say George “wasn’t fit to lick my shoe,” further championing a notion of arrogance stemming from her fantasy with Tom

Myrtle is a woman in her thirties, she wasn't the quite prettiest and was married to a guy named Wilson which she was unhappy with. Myrtle pretended to be rich even though she lives in the valley and is considered a low social class. Just by that I already knew she wanted people to think otherwise which I found very sketchy of her. If you want people to like you, you have to show them the real you. When she found out Wilson wasn't wealthy it was already too late to back out from getting married.she would then cheat on Wilson with Tom because he was wealthy. When she was with Tom she would change into a very good dress but would call it basically saying like this little old thing .“’It’s just a crazy old thing,” she said. “I just slip it on

Myrtle uses the affair with Tom Buchanan to escape her situation with her husband. Catherine, is aware that “Neither of [Myrtle nor Tom] can stand the person they are married to.” (Fitzgerald 33). Stated before, one reason why Myrtle is with Tom is because of his social status. Myrtle is extremely money hungry and desperate for fame. For instance, when a man like Tom, enormously wealthy, big and handsome, walks into Myrtle’s eyesight, she’ll try to manipulate him, find a way to use her main attribute, her sexuality, to win him over. What creates Myrtle is her strong personality, how forward and fearless she is. With those qualities, she wonders why she settles for less, and by less I mean George. George B. Wilson, Myrtle’s husband, is a “spiritless man” who Tom defines as “dumb”. In Myrtle’s prospective, having an affair with Tom, who is out of her league let alone her own social class, replaces the fact that she is not happy nor in love with George. (Fitzgerald 25-26). George is the main reason why Myrtle sneaks around with Tom. It’s because he’s powerless, weak and easy to boss around which is exactly what Myrtle does. Myrtle views herself as the alpha

Myrtle, like Violet was striving to rise out of the poverty she was born into. Because of the shame she feels about her birth class, she talked down to lower class citizens as if she isn’t one of them. She refers to them as low order. “I told that boy about the ice.” “These people! You have to keep after them all the time” (Fitzgerald 36). She belittles people she would associate with class wise in order to feel more like the people she wishes she belonged to. She was trying to be someone she’s not. She insists that she married below her. “The only crazy I was was when I married him. I knew right away I made a mistake. He borrowed somebody’s best suit to get married in and never even told me about it…(Fitzgerald 39).” This is significant because it shows that she sincerely believes that she was in the class that she was by mistake. Her believing she was in that class by mistake has had negative effects on her self-image and what she tolerates. This is evident in the book when she’s taunting Tom by repeatedly saying Daisy’s name. He then proceeds to slap myrtle and in the process breaking her nose. This is significant because it shows the kinds of thing she would endure in order

The idea of the wealthy thinking of themselves as being superior and having dominance over others can be seen: ‘literally forced me from the car. “We’re getting off,” he insisted.’ Tom’s dominant attitude can be seen, as Nick is forced into meeting Tom’s mistress, also giving the impression Tom wants to show off ‘his girl’. This also puts the idea forward that Tom thinks of Myrtle as another possession to be shown off, again tying in with the theme of the American Dream in accumulating as many possessions as possible. This attitude Tom has towards Myrtle can also be seen: ‘leaving her at the table,

Myrtle desires wealth and luxuries, and as a result she has an affair with Tom, who gives her anything she yearns for. Myrtle despises her lifestyle with her husband, George Wilson, due to the lower-class living and dirty, physical labor. She explains how, “I married him because I thought he was a gentleman … I thought he knew something about breeding, but he wasn’t fit to lick my shoe” (Fitzgerald, 34). Myrtle planned to marry a rich man, so in the future he could support her children and herself, and they would be members of