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How Is Myrtle Wilson Portrayed In The Great Gatsby

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The novel, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a story about romance, conflict, partying, and death. Fitzgerald gives a very good perspective of what it was actually like during this time period. The conflicts portrayed in this story have an abundance to do with love and distrust. For two characters, named Tom Buchanan and George Wilson, most of their life consists of lies. Whether it is them committing the lie, or them being lied to. Tom and George are more similar than they are different from the way they show their attitudes towards women, their reactions to being cheated on, and their ways of showing violence. Tom Buchanan is a wealthy man who lives in East Egg and is married to the beautiful Daisy Buchanan. He spends his days playing football, …show more content…

Myrtle Wilson just so happens to be George Wilson’s wife, and the woman Tom is cheating on Daisy with. George Wilson, is a very poor man, and lives in the Valley of Ashes. George knows that Myrtle is cheating on him but cannot really do anything about it. Myrtle Wilson is an insecure women who loves that she is sleeping with a rich man. Tom is the type of man that wants a woman he can control just like Myrtle and his wife, Daisy. He has a conversation with Nick Carraway, the narrator of this book, saying that he loves his wife Daisy, and would never leave her, despite the many nights he spends with Myrtle. "And what's more, I love Daisy too. Once in a while I go off on a spree and make a fool of myself, but I always come Johnson 2 back, and in my heart I love her all the time." (Fitzgerald, 131). What is ironic about Tom’s statement is that he says he cares for Daisy so much but still continues you to run around with Myrtle. He sees Daisy and Myrtle at a lower stance than him, so he tends to treat them both with less respect. In this situation George is completely different than Tom. George wishes for a woman he can control and at some points he actually believes that he has that.

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Mr. Buchanan’s wealth and ego makes him a bully and leads him to believe that he is entitled to anything he desires. Myrtle, being the one below Tom and Daisy in social stature, is expected to obey Tom. Myrtle obnoxiously says, "Daisy! Daisy! Daisy!"

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“I've been drunk for about a week now, and I thought it might sober me up to sit in a library." (Fitzgerald 42). In The Great Gatsby there are many parallels between the life of the main character Jay Gatsby and the life of the author F. Scott Fitzgerald that suggest events from the author's life being drafted into the novel. The idea for Daisy's character, Gatsby's rise into wealth and vasts amount of drinking throughout the novel were influenced by Fitzgerald's life. Fitzgerald was stationed at camp taylor during world war 1 where he met the love of his life and future wife zelda Sayre.

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2255 Words | 10 Pages

Chapter 7: 20. There are similar circumstances revealed between both Tom and Wilson such as: they are both overprotective of their wives. In the novel, Daisy is fooling around with Gatsby and Myrtle is fooling around with Tom. Tom and George both love their wives no matter what is going on but they don't like that they are associating themselves with other men in such a way. 21.

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1135 Words | 5 Pages

Ultimately all four characters, Daisy, Tom, Myrtle, and George are victims and oppressors. The marriages are strained and complicated and they are connected through Tom and Myrtle, who had an affair together throughout the novel. At first glance readers may assume that the marriages between the Buchanans

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794 Words | 4 Pages

“The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald, exposes the American Society during the 1920’s. The author displays many heroes and villain throughout the book. The characters in the novel are mostly mixtures of good and evil. Although the book does not clearly delineate the villains or heroes, there is one character who tends to stand out as a villain known as Tom Buchanan. Tom Buchanan is a major character in the book.

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The book The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald is centered around the roaring 20’s era. The main character is Jay Gatsby who is a shady rich person who lives in West egg in a mansion, and across the way with a green light at the end of the dock is his “so called” girlfriend Daisy( who is already married to a man tom buchanan). This couple and George and Myrtle Wilson convey the theme that love can be in some cases toxic, because it works with the mental and physicality of you. In the book was an affair between Myrtle and Tom buchanan, which these two are already married and in all sense in reality are having affairs. In Chapter 2, Myrtle makes a personal statement of how she feels about her current husband, George Wilson, “ I married

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867 Words | 4 Pages

In Francis Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, there are two characters by the names of Tom Buchanan and George Wilson. Throughout the book, these two particular characters seem to be very different from each other in nearly every way. However, it becomes clear as the story continues that they share some ideas and attitudes in common. Specifically, Tom and George were noteworthy in the way they felt about women, the methods by which they conveyed violence, and how they responded to their wives cheating on them.

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826 Words | 4 Pages

The Great Gatsby is an American novel written by Scott Fitzgerald. On the surface, the book revolves around the concept of romance, the love between two individuals. However, the novel incorporates less of a romantic scope and rather focuses on the theme of the American Dream in the 1920s. Fitzgerald depicts the 1920’s as an era of decline in moral values. The strong desire for luxurious pleasure and money ultimately corrupts the American dream which was originally about individualism.

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She grew to resent her own husband for being poor and unable to provide her with the lavish things Tom gave her. When talking about why she had married her husband when she seems to dislike him so much Myrtle explained, “‘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. ’”(pg. 34). Myrtle assumed that her husband, George Wilson, was a man who would be able to provide for both of them and wanted to live a comfy life.

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Myrtle stated, “I married him because I thought he was a gentleman” (Fitzgerald 34). Fitzgerald hinted at irony in that moment because

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1238 Words | 5 Pages

Tom also has a big connection with Nick as confides in him to keep Myrtle a secret. With Myrtle as a lover and uses her for his pleasure and enjoyment but this soon creates drama with George Wilson. His involvement with Myrtle is a secret that Nick knows about but Daisy doesn’t know anything about Myrtle which

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1223 Words | 5 Pages

“And what's more, I love Daisy too. Once in a while I go off on a spree and make a fool of myself, but I always come back, and in my heart I love her all the time” (Fitzgerald 138). These words, spoken by Tom Buchanan in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic novel The Great Gatsby, exemplify the personality traits that are omnipresent throughout the novel. Tom is Daisy Buchanan’s husband whom she marries after her first love, Jay Gatsby, leaves for the war.

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808 Words | 4 Pages

The Great Gatsby Appearance vs Reality The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is about how a man by the name of Jay Gatsby tries to win the heart of Daisy Buchanan, the woman he loves. The entirety of The Great Gatsby is told through the narrator, Nick Carraway. At first, Nick views the lifestyle of Jay Gatsby, Tom Buchanan and Daisy Buchanan in awe, but soon discovers that these people are not who they appear. Fitzgerald uses his characters and literary devices in The Great Gatsby to demonstrate the theme of appearance versus reality.

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1149 Words | 5 Pages

Just like Daisy, Myrtle chooses money over love. She cheats on her husband George with Tom. Myrtle was a woman from the lower class who desired to be a part of the higher class. Tom spoiled Myrtle and gave her the lifestyle she always wanted. She belittles her husband and talk bad about him because he is not at the top of the social ladder where Tom is.

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1399 Words | 6 Pages

Myrtle is accustomed to living an underprivileged life where feminine power engulfs her, but Tom is too egotistical to allow Myrtle to speak with such authority to him. Similarly, Gatsby’s need for assurance from Daisy pressures her into revealing to Tom that she never loved him (Fitzgerald 132). Deep down, Daisy knows that she truly did love Tom once, but Gatsby’s assertiveness and persistence drives her over the edge to telling Tom that what the two of them shared meant nothing to her. Daisy’s attribute of being a pushover is revealed immensely because she refuses to stand up for herself. Daisy is used to enabling Tom to constantly control all aspects of her life, and that leaves her powerless in society.

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