Myrtle is Tom Buchanan’s lover, her husband George owns a rundown garage in the valley of ashes and she possesses fierce vitality and desperately looks for ways to improve her situation. Sadly she chooses Tom who treats her as an object of his desire. She is mid-thirties, short and plump but carries her extra flesh voluptuously. She wears clothes that are stretched tight over her fairly broad hips. (Fitzgerald p.28) Myrtles personality and behavior show that she wants to climb the social status with her acute manner and vigor. Myrtle having an affair on her husband with Tom shows she dreams of having money and being a part of the upper class social group. Myrtle wants the life that Daisy has with Tom, this is clear when they are at the apartment that Tom keeps. Fitzgerald shows Myrtle as being jealous of Daisy because when Tom gives her a puppy as a gift she talks about Daisy, Tom says sternly never mention my wife again.
In some works of literature, a character who appears briefly, or does not appear at all, is a significant presence. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, Myrtle Wilson drastically affects other characters by her worldly desires, actions, and static characteristics. In most circumstances it is believed that the story is solely about the main character, but one needs to objectively look at all the cast members, specifically Mrs. Wilson. The author chooses each person with great intentions.
The Disillusionment of the American Dream is evident in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. The main characters that exhibit this through their lives are; Daisy Buchanan, Myrtle Wilson and Mr. Jay Gatsby. All of these characters hold on to their dream, but all of these characters are somehow let down.
F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote the novel, “The Great Gatsby”, with the concept of “The American Dream”. For most Americans, “The American Dream”, is the idea of freedom, wealth, equality and opportunity. But F. Scott Fitzgerald manages to define all of the characters in his novel through the use of literary devices and symbols. Also, Fitzgerald explains how each character, even with their wealth; never seem to have their “America Dream”.
In the novel, Great Gatsby, the two main women presented are Daisy Buchanan and Myrtle Wilson. There are many similarities and differences between Daisy and Myrtle. For instance both of them are unhappy in their lives and they are love in with a different with person, not with their husband. Their marriage is a jail. They are both in love with Tom in a different way, Daisy is the wife and Myrtle is the mistress. As we get to know throughout the novel, both of them have an affair, Daisy meets again with her old love, Gatsby, and Myrtle is the mistress of Tom.
After Myrtle answers Catherine questions and why she married George Wilson which indicates that Myrtle doesn 't think he is fit enough to be her husband. She was basically using him for the things she thought he had. And now she 's saying that he isn 't even worthy enough to lick her shoes. This is basically saying that he is worthless. During this time people consume more alcohol than nowadays and alcohol is a great want and need for the lives of most people to get away from stressful times, to have fun or to make a living. Then Myrtle tells Nick how the affair between her and Tom began. They were riding the train together and happen to sit on the only seats available which happen to face each other. She decides how Tom was dress and that
Have you ever had a day when you are too embarrassed of yourself that you wanted to hide by wearing a mask? Masks are used in various ways, they can be used for a Halloween costume or a stage play. The astonishing thing is that those masks are visible to others. In the Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the characters such as Myrtle Wilson, Jay Gatsby, and Daisy Buchanan use masks that cannot be seen with the naked eye, they used them as a way to hide their flaws to others.
Although F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby debuted in 1925– before the Great Depression– it serves as a prophetic exemplification of the the material excess of the 1920s that drowned out signs of the coming Great Depression. The book’s plot follows the bootlegger Jay Gatsby as he pursues his old love Daisy Buchanan through flaunting his new extravagant lifestyle, mainly by throwing ostentatious parties. Yet, in the end, Daisy chooses her unfaithful husband Tom over Gatsby. Through Fitzgerald’s use of wealthy, materialistic characters, he comments on the effect of the material excess of the roaring twenties: moral corruption.
The American Dream for many individuals, is a goal. Some achieve it, others result in failure. So what is the American Dream and why does it seem so appealing to the average person? The American Dream is the idea that anyone can work hard and achieve wealth and success in America. This is so inspiring and uplifting because most people want to better themselves, especially back in the 1920’s. This idea is portrayed as an important theme in the book, The Great Gatsby. The author of The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald reveals many characters in the book that strive for the American Dream. However, it’s controversial if they achieved the American Dream or failed.
The 1920’s was a very interesting time in United States history. After all World War I had ended and many Americans did not realize that the Great Depression was in the near future, so the 1920’s fell between these two dramatic events. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby teaches many morals, but none more important than the duality of the 1920’s. Duality is evident in Gatsby's dreams, his death, his lover Daisy, his wealth, and his parties, which all reflect the duality of the 1920’s. Throughout the novel, Fitzgerald makes the concept of achieving the American dream seem improbable. Gatsby has the American Dream of being successful and wanting to marry the girl of his dreams. However, Fitzgerald argues that The American Dream is a paradox because dreams aren’t supposed to be achieved, and are better off to remain in one’s imagination. For example, Gatsby wants to marry the love of his life, Daisy Buchanan. Sadly Gatsby sets such a high standard for her that she will never be able to live up to. Gatsby envisions Daisy as the golden girl, and once he put his plan into action, he realizes
F. Scott Fitzgerald would be opposed to the redevelopment of Willets Point due to his belief that classism and the pursuit of the American Dream hurts those who are not apart of that affluence. In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Myrtle is a woman married to Mr. Wilson who is the owner of an auto shop in the valley of ashes which is a very poor industrial area in the book. Myrtle marries Mr. Wilson believing he was a well off business owner who would be able to support her, however, she finds out otherwise: “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 shoes” (Fitzgerald 34). In Myrtle’s hasty pursuit of the American Dream she marries Mr. Wilson to use him to achieve the
Myrtle and Daisy had chased both love and money, at different point in their life. For both of them, it is their ambition and dreams that they seek to fulfill themselves with. Regardless of their backgrounds, they remain the same in their wants towards something they don’t have, or in Daisy’s case, choosing what they want over everything else, regardless of how much they already have of it. Myrtle had married Wilson, not for the money he had owned, as he did not own any, but simply because she “thought that he was a gentleman”. However, Myrtle’s ambition was money, because when Wilson neither produced riches nor at the very least, gave her the love initially wanted, she turned to Tom to receive them both. Myrtle was a “gold-digger”, but she also believed that he would genuinely love her and pick her over Daisy, even though Tom gave no indication of doing so. Like Daisy, breathed out wealth, Myrtle had breathed out vitality and sensuality, hoping for Tom to chose her as his love and for him to give her riches and luxury.
Although the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald emphasizes the parties and prosperity of the American 1920's, it reveals many major characters meeting tragic ends. The characters who meet these ends - Jay Gatsby, Myrtle Wilson, and George Wilson - possess the same tragic characteristic: they endeavor for something more out of their lives than what they have. This ambition for what they could not have ultimately spelled their doom: Gatsby wanted money and Daisy; Myrtle wanted wealth and luxury, and sought it from Tom Buchanan; Wilson earned what he could only to please Myrtle. The Great Gatsby reveals a tragic nature through the trials and tribulations these characters endure to progress and prosper, only to receive death for their ambition. The exciting and wild time period of the "Roaring Twenties" provides a stark contrast to the deaths in order to further highlight the tragic nature of the novel, and leaves a theme that even those with the most hope and strong ambitions can fail and die miserably, no matter how much money they have.
The novel The Great Gatsby by Scott Fitz Gerald embodies many themes. A major in the story is the pursuit of can be labelled the American Dream. The American Dream is defined as someone starting low on the economic or social level, and working hard towards prosperity and or wealth and fame. By having money, a car, a big house, nice clothes and a happy family symbolizes the American dream. The Great Gatsby shows what happened to the American Dream in the 1920’s, which is a time period when the dreams became corrupted for many reasons. Through the empty lives of three characters from this novel—Myrtle, Daisy, and Jay Gatsby—Fitzgerald shows that chasing hollow dreams leads only to misery.
The modern American dream is a recurring ideal, one attainable through hard work and skill; however, this belief is challenged in The Great Gatsby, which questions if effort is truly the key to success when the illusion of the American dream overpowers the reality. No longer the phrase that helped form a nation, the road to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness has veered off course, paving way for a new, debased version to take its place, one that is highly criticized in the novel. Both Gatsby and Wilson were hard workers, and this, ideally, should have gotten them far, although conversely, they both paid a price, raising doubt if The Great Gatsby was actually a tribute to the American lifestyle after all.