Daisy Buchanan and Myrtle of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

(pg. 26) d. Myrtle is introduced as Tom’s mistress. She adds conflict because she knows that Tom has Daisy and a child. She also has a husband of her own who is George Wilson. Tom gives her the life she wants, and that she doesn’t have.

Even though she is married to George she starts an affair with Tom Buchanan who is married to Daisy. Myrtle is very jealous of Daisy because Daisy has everything Myrtle wants. Tom Buchanan is a rich man who can buy her anything and is considered an alpha male in the book. Why does Myrtle want to have an affair with Tom while married to George? Money and money alone. Tom Buchanan may be attractive, but what does Tom have that George the mechanic does not? Money. That is the reason Myrtle thinks differently about her husband. For example, on page 26, when Tom arrives at George Wilson’s garage, Myrtle goes to shake hands with Tom, “walking through her husband as if he was a ghost.” The real reason Tom is going to George’s garage is because he wants to take Myrtle out. Myrtle lies to her husband saying she is going to see her sister while she is actually going to meet up with Tom. Also, on page 34, Myrtle talks about how she married a man that was in a class below her and that she deserves better. She says, “…but he wasn’t fit to lick my shoe.” Both of these quotes give hints as to how Myrtle thinks of her husband now that she is with

Tom’s little infidelity with Myrtle was a start to Wilson losing it. One day Tom goes to Wilson’s shop and witnesses Myrtle being locked up in a cage for something he did. “He had discovered that Myrtle had some sort of life apart from him in another world, and the shock had made him physically sick” (Fitzgerald, 124) ‘“ I’ve got my wife locked in up there,” explained Wilson calmly”’ (Fitzgerald, 136). Tom’s infidelity with Myrtle made Wilson so sick that he had to lock up her own wife so she wouldn’t leave him. Myrtle was everything Wilson had and he would do anything if she was taken away from him. This started the fuse that would later explode into chaos later

In the novel, The Great Gatsby, the two central women presented are Daisy Buchanan and Myrtle Wilson. These two women, although different, have similar personalities. Throughout the novel, there are instances in which the reader feels bad for and dislikes both Daisy and Myrtle. These two women portray that wealth is better than everything else, and they both base their lives on it. Also the novel shows the hardships and difficulties they have in their marriages. They are never satisfied with what they have, and are always longing for more.

After feeling distant from his wife for some time, Wilson feels reason to believe his wife is having an affair behind his back. This causes Wilson to become very angry at his wife making him lock her in the apartment and forcing her to move out of the city with him. Myrtle is very

Myrtle admits that she “‘married him because [she] thought he was a gentlemen” and that “he wasn’t fit enough to lick [her] shoe’” (35). This statement is very disrespectful to Mr. Wilson and just conveys how miserable she is with this

While all previous cases of Wilson have been employed as a means of further developing characters. Complementing this role, Wilson also plays a noteworthy part in plot development. Following the death of Myrtle, who Daisy, in fact, killed, Wilson learns of Myrtle's affair. However, through his own odd logic, Wilson comes to believe that Myrtle was running out to see her lover, when in fact she was running away from Wilson himself.

Myrtle Wilson is the second major character in The Great Gatsby. She is about 30 years old and is “faintly stout but she carried her surplus flesh sensuously as some woman can” (The Great Gatsby: Character). Myrtle is married to George Wilson, also a mistress to Tom Buchanan. She is not happy with her marriage nor her lifestyle. Myrtle is part of the lower class of society making her poor. With them being poor they end up living in their car garage. George seemed like a gentleman and that is why Myrtle married him, but turns out that he wasn’t. Tom is part the upper class of society which attracts Myrtle to him. They spend a lot of time in the city together. She has an excuse to tell George that she is visiting her sister. George is getting a suspicion that Myrtle is up to no good, and locks her up in a closet. Myrtle being upset, notices a yellow car thinking it was Tom because she noticed him driving it earlier, she runs to the car to get away from George

She realizes that about herself, but continues to think of herself very highly. She knows what she is but she hides her insecurities with a mask that has to do with her self-image. This mask hides her insecurities from the desires she wants her life. Myrtle is a married woman to a man named George. Myrtle initially got with George in hopes of him having money. When Myrtle finds out he does not she wants to back out but it is too late. Myrtle only wants people to think she has money, we see her doing unimaginable things to get this image. One of the levels of wrong is treating her husband poorly, but her lowest action is cheating. She commits adultery with Tom Buchanan, who is also a married man. Tom is an extremely wanted and high rank man with extensive amounts of money. Myrtle thinks she would be good enough for Tom by giving him what she wants. Myrtle sees an opportunity to have the life she has dreamed of with Tom. You see Myrtles jealousy and desire for Daisy’s life when she chants “Daisy! Daisy! Daisy!" to Tom. (Fitzgerald 41). In reality Tom is just bored and has to real desire to be with Myrtle. Some people think Myrtle could be recognized as a “gold-digger”, but in actuality she has trained herself to think that her mask is actually her true self. Myrtle truly believes that her happiness comes from

Consequently, Daisy Buchanan and Myrtle Wilson are two completely different characters in many ways. Firstly, Daisy and Myrtle are different in the physical aspect, for example Myrtle is a, “thickish sort of a woman… with an immediate perceptible vitality about her. She smiled slowly… then she wet her lips.” Using a biblical allusion, the author fashions Myrtle into the adulteress woman in proverbs “there met him a woman with the attire of an harlot, and subtle of heart. She is loud and stubborn; her feet abide not in her house… so she caught him and kissed him.” (Pr. 7 vs. 10-13) Likewise Myrtle is a woman who is considered sensual, and she uses her smoldering body to attract Tom for her own gratification and satisfaction. However, Daisy in her physical appearance is “Dressed in white, her face sad and lovely, bright eyes and her voice a singing compulsion, a whispered listen.” The author

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 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

Myrtle had a very rich lifestyle; she loved to wear expensive clothes and have expensive items. Myrtle had a hard time to fulfill her expensive lifestyle because George Wilson was very poor. To solve this problem she began to date Tom and she fell in love with his money. Tom would buy her anything she asked for and kept it at their apartment, “I want to get one of those dogs...I want to get one for the apartment” (Fitzgerald 31). Fitzgerald showed the readers having an affair for the money will not end well. When George discovered Myrtle having an affair, as a loving husband would, accused her of the affair. Myrtle screamed at Mr. Wilson, “Beat me. Throw me down and beat me, you dirty little coward” (Fitzgerald 144). The termination of Tom and Myrtle’s affair was when Myrtle was killed by the intoxicated Daisy after this

Myrtle’s obsessive desire for an upper-class lifestyle leads to her failure, death, and loss of true happiness. Myrtle’s obsession causes her to commit adultery in her marriage with her husband George Wilson, a struggling gas station owner and mechanic in the Valley of the Ashes (Fitzgerald, 25), for a wealthier man known as Tom Buchanan. Myrtle has the hope and desire to connect with someone who has a perfect, and wealthy lifestyle as she reads in her gossip magazines (37). When Myrtle first got married to George, she was crazy about him and thought that she achieved the happiness she desired (35). However, Myrtle says, “’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 told me about it’” (35). Myrtle’s attraction to Tom is not only based on his appearance, but his money as well. When Myrtle talks about the first time she met Tom Buchanan, a married wealthy man, she describes him in terms of his clothing. “’He had on a dress suit and patent leather shoes, and I couldn’t keep my eyes off of him’” (36). This shows how materialistic Myrtle is, and that she is embarrassed by her marriage to George, as he couldn’t afford his own suit to get married in. She looks at Tom in a contrasting way compared to George, as he is someone who can afford to buy his own suit. Tom rents an apartment for Myrtle, she fills the apartment with fancy items she has desired and seen from gossip magazines (37). Whenever Myrtle is in the apartment, she changes into an expensive cream-colored chiffon dress. When asked about her clothing change, she replies “’It’s just a crazy old thing. I just slip it on sometimes when I don’t care what I look like’” (31). Myrtle uses her affair with Tom

Myrtle Wilson, the wife of George, and the lover of Tom Buchanan, is brutally murdered toward the end of the novel. After an uncivilized afternoon in New York, Daisy and Gatsby head swiftly back to East Egg. Gatsby explains to Nick, “It all happened in a minute, but it seemed to me that she wanted to speak to us, thought we were somebody she knew” (Fitzgerald 109). Myrtle ran out toward the car looking for Tom but sadly for her it is not him. Many know about Tom’s affair, but not with whom he is having it, especially Daisy. Daisy never slows the car down, and she never realizes who she hits. This shows that Daisy is oblivious to Myrtles existence. Myrtle is sleeping with her husband, she ruins their marriage, and Daisy kills her. The irony exists in this because Daisy actually saves her marriage by killing