The Great Gatsby Context Analysis

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

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Myrtle uses Tom’s money to buy things in which she wants, not for what is absolutely needed. This is shown in Chapter 2 when she makes Tom buy her things from a newsstand and waits for a “fancier” taxi to come by, she also demands he buy her a puppy as well. “At the

Myrtle is unhappy with her standard of living and George. A quote to support this is, “I married him because I thought he was a gentleman” she said finally. “I thought he knew something about breeding, but he wasn’t fit to lick my shoe” (2.34). It is shown in this quote that Myrtle overestimated George’s money because he’s a mechanic and is unhappy she is living over a garage. In addition, that’s where Tom comes in and she has an affair with him. A quote to assist this would be, “Wilson? He thinks she goes to see her sister in New York. He’s so dumb he doesn’t know she’s alive” (2.26). In analysis of this quote, Myrtle uses Tom to get away from George and because Tom is wealthy and buys things for her. There was more than one reason to Myrtle’s affair with

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Myrtle’s apartment is the opposite to the valley of ashes as it is garish and loud. Myrtle is cheap and from the working class, and so has no taste. This is reinforced through Scott Fitzgerald’s description of the apartment bought for her by Tom Buchanan, so that he can conduct his affair with her. Fitzgerald describes everything as small, ‘a small living-room, a small dining-room, a small bedroom’. As it’s only intended for two people, Myrtle and Tom, it should only be small, but this is also a hint from Fitzgerald that Tom doesn’t think very much of Myrtle as he don’t spend his money on her, which he was freely spending in Yale, but on himself. Nick says (through Fitzgerald) that the apartment ‘was crowded to the doors’ in the living room, with ‘a set of tapestried furniture, entirely too large for it’. This suggests that Myrtle wants to put on an act of being rich and wealthy, and so copies their styles but with no taste and so ruins the effect. She is trying to hide her social class, and her apartment is used by Fitzgerald to highlight an

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)