Myrtle Wilson In The Great Gatsby

How Myrtle's Death effects Nick Carraway's Character In F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel "The Great Gatsby," the death of Myrtle Wilson serves as a crucial moment that brings into focus the true character of Nick Carraway. Throughout the book, Nick is portrayed as a morally upright and objective narrator, but it is in the aftermath of Myrtle's death that his true nature is revealed. From the beginning of the book, Nick is established as a character with a strong sense of moral integrity. He prides himself on being a person of honesty and honor, as evidenced by his decision to leave the East and return to the Midwest. However, as the events of the novel unfold, it becomes clear that Nick is not as morally upright as he initially presents himself to be.

This can be evidenced when Nick observes that “the only building in sight was a small block of yellow brick”(27). This observation is made by Nick on the day where he meets Myrtle and visits the Valley of Ashes for the first time. The building which he is describing is the building which houses George Wilson’s garage, which is also where George and Myrtle live. This quotation shows how Myrtle’s home in the Valley of Ashes is incredibly secluded, which forces her to be physically separated from others. Consequently, Myrtle’s extreme seclusion is a symbol used by Fitzgerald to both vilify women and the American Dream, as he uses her isolation to reiterate her poverty, in order to ridicule her dreams of becoming rich. Similarly, Daisy is also portrayed as emotionally isolated in her marriage to Tom. This can be evidenced in the quotation where she says “do you know why we left Chicago? I’m surprised that they didn’t treat you to the story of that little spree” (125). In this quotation, Daisy is speaking to Nick, referencing one of Tom’s affairs that he had in Chicago. She speaks this line during Tom and Gatsby’s fight in the hotel room, soon after Tom says that although he has had affairs, that he still loves

The first few pages of the third chapter of The Great Gatsby are a good example of the book’s rhetorical style. In these pages, Fitzgerald strategically includes intricate details using rhetorical tools such as figurative language and extensive imagery in order to create vivid images in the mind of the reader. Syntactically, the use of polysyndeton and use of conjunctions allow Fitzgerald to paint a picture through several decisive snapshots, portraying the scene using a carefree, almost unreal tone. Fitzgerald’s strong imagery and long, intricate sentence structure work together to develop a characteristically descriptive style. When introducing Gatsby’s parties, Fitzgerald uses imagery and figurative language as his primary tools to fully

The author uses the Valley of Ashes, a small town between the West Egg and New York City, to symbolize the moral and social decay that stems from the desire to become wealthy. The Valley of Ashes, "a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens, where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air symbolizes a morally stripped place where materialistic and false people can live in harmony. The unfortunate events that occur in the Valley of Ashes, including Gatsby's death, the affair between Tom and Myrtle and Myrtle's accidental death, represent the severe consequences stemming from the failed attempts at achieving the American Dream. As the characters travel through the Valley of Ashes to reach elsewhere, they are forced to belittle themselves to a lower social status, as seen when Tom engages in an affair with Myrtle, a poor-stricken woman, who solely provides another form of comfort. Serving as a symbol of social and moral destruction, the Valley of Ashes also symbolizes the condition in which the poorer American society lived during the 1920s. The description of the Valley of Ashes used through color symbolism, creates a melancholy atmosphere which allows the reader to connect the importance of the "desolate strip of land" to the negative personality changes, reflective of the 1920s, within the characters.

People in America love to have a great deal of money. In the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gatsby always wants to have money, and he finally gets it. Gatsby has parties to try to get Daisy to come to his house. Gatsby tell Nick to tell Daisy to come to Nick’s house without her husband. Gatsby finallys shows his big house off to Daisy and thinks he will win her love back again just because he has money. Gatsby’s plan do not work out. Fitzgerald uses symbols in The Great Gatsby to show how things are going wrong in America.

The death of Myrtle and the concept of mortality is represented through Nick's use of expressive language, he states "where Myrtle Wilson, her life violently extinguished, knelt in the road and mingled her thick dark blood with the dust", this expression of life's tragic end here is complemented by Nicks use of imagery, we are left with the raw image of Myrtle lying on the floor in displaced agony - stark message to readers that life is not perpetual and everlasting. Hope is depicted through Gatsby's chase of the American Dream, he does not rest until this is finally fulfilled, it never becomes truly realized and he ends up paying the ultimate price of his life for it. Gatsby is blinded by the illusions that stand between him and happiness. Gatsby perceives Daisy to be his happiness, but Daisy is not. Fitzgerald examines the American Dream by autopsy, through the reflective narrator. Though the principles of the idealistic dream still exist, highlighted by Gatsby's ambition and drive to improve himself, the morality behind the dream has been substituted by money, resulting in decadence, corruption and distinct class divisions between people. Fitzgerald represents the corruption and the demise of the original, idealistic American Dream with the death of both Gatsby and Wilson- two men who make a living, and strive to better themselves with new money.

The Great Gatsby is often seen as the book that best illustrates the Roaring 1920s and offers insight into the new freedom, along side the new challenges women faced during this revolutionary time. Published in 1924, The Great Gatsby was written during the height of the flapper era, and the main female characters are reflective of the social change. The 1920s, commonly depicted as a time of great wealth and freedom in America, created many changes for women. The right to vote was granted in 1919, and many women had experienced some degree of financial independence during World War I by working in previously male-dominated industries. The loosening of social mores after the war made dating, sexual activity, drinking and smoking more permissible

The Great Gatsby is one of the most read pieces of literature throughout the current modern Western world. High school kids all across the globe must learn and read it as part of their curriculum. One of the aspects that makes this novel so notable is that Fitzgerald, at no point in the story, needs to convey to his audience the theme of his novel directly. The main points of his novel are brought out by the powerful symbols he infuses in the book. Not only does he use them to convey his theme, but also ties them in to the rest of the story. Every aspect of this book is affected by the presence of one of his symbols. Through the use of the green light, the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg, and the Valley of the Ashes as symbols,

I thoroughly enjoy the writing style of Fitzgerald, he does a wonderful job on adding subtle details to add more emotion and reality. Daisy is an intriguing character and I love the way Fitzgerald describes her. While Nick talked to his cousin, he noticed “Her face was sad and lovely with bright things in it, bright eyes and a bright passionate mouth, but there was an excitement in her voice that men who had cared for her found difficult to forget” (9). ‘Bright’ is a repeating word in this sentence, Nick believes his cousin is a light and lively person men are attracted to. Nick uses the juxtaposition of ‘sad’ and ‘lovely’ to express what he sees in Daisy at that moment. He notices Daisy is a lovely woman with kind intentions; however, she

ideas or concepts. For example, a dove is usually used to represent peace. In the novel The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Fitzgerald uses a lot of symbolism to connect the characters with each other or to other objects. Fitzgerald’s use of symbolism helps advance his thematic interest in his novel of The Great Gatsby. In the Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald uses various colors, objects, and gestures as symbols to portray the lack of moral and spiritual values of people and the different aspects of society in the 1920's.

     F. Scott Fitzgerald, author of The Great Gatsby, uses symbolism throughout the novel to create the characters and events of the post World War I period. Colors are one way symbolism was used to develop the characters’ personalities and set up events. This is shown by colors like the green at the end of Daisy Buchannan’s dock, the color of Jay Gatsby’s car and how Myrtle and Jordan surrounded themselves by white. Other symbolisms used to set up events are the difference in the people of the West Egg and East Egg and the sign in the “valley of ashes”.

In life everyone strives to get rich, but is having an abundance of money always good? Sometimes people use money for personal benefits, sometimes it's for the benefit of others, but at times people with money use it to create their social status. In The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the idea of wealth is seen throughout. Jay Gatsby, who lives next door to Nick Carraway; the Narrator of the story, wants to be with his dream girl Daisy. Gatsby is wealthy and throws parties to impress Daisy. Daisy however, is married to another man Tom Buchanan. Throughout the story the people with money use it to create their social status. In The Great Gatsby F.Scott Fitzgerald uses symbolism to convey, wealth causes people to assert

The Great Gatsby is filled with symbols and symbolism, which try to convey Fitzgerald's ideas to the reader. The symbols are uniquely involved in the plot of the story, which makes their implications more real. There are three major symbols that serve very important significance in the symbolism of the novel. They are "the valley of the ashes," the reality that represents the corruption in the world, the green light of Daisy's lap that Gatsby sees across the bay and lastly, the symbolism of the East Egg and West Egg or more important the east and the west of the country.

Throughout Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, there is a ubiquitous theme of motion, whether that is portrayed through the symbolism of cars, boats, or people. This motion is essential to explaining the spirit of American culture. The most significant motion is that of the characters, who move from Midwestern America to Eastern America, and continue onward. This movement is motivated by a plethora of causes, whether that is for money, love, or whatever else one’s dream may be. However, this motion may be pointless, as shown by both Nick Carraway and Jay Gatsby, when neither of their dreams are wholly fulfilled by their Eastward movements. Overall, the motif of movement across America is representative of the American Dream, and the ever-present

The relationship that Tom and Myrtle’s yield allows Fitzgerald to critique the life’s of the wealthy, old-money class in 1920s New York. By showing Tom’s affair with a working-class woman, Nick reveals Tom’s ugliest behavior as well as the brutality of class divisions during the roaring twenties. Critics Ian and Michelle McMechan in their article ‘Gatsby’s women’ identify how the tones in which Fitzgerald draws Myrtle are mainly grey and brown and she hails from a ‘valley of ashes’. Myrtle’s appeal, in contrast to Daisy’s, is raw and earthy: ‘She had changed her dress to a brown figured muslin, which stretched tight over her rather wide hips’ as Nick notes on first meeting her. Her ‘intense vitality’ expands in Tom’s presence until ‘she seemsto be revolving on a noisy creaking pivot through the smoky air.’ Myrtle appears as some form of marionette in fact a grotesque fairground attraction doll. This ‘doll’ who is used by Tom with a purpose of comfort, but such desires lead Tom to cheat on the mother of his child and react with brutality to the women who he carries out the