Myrtle's Changes In The Great Gatsby

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Society judges everything anyone says or does that isn’t like everyone else. During the 1920’s if someone didn’t have money they were seen as a nobody. Jay Gatsby started out as a nobody, if it weren't for Daisy Buchanan he would have never become a somebody. Gatsby’s dream was to gain enough wealth and success to woe Daisy Buchanan whom he has loved for the past five years. He could not accept himself as a poor boy so he became the rich man that he thought Daisy would love, it did not work. She was a dream he had dreamt for too long, Daisy has changed and became a new person, she was no longer what he wanted her to be. He is obsessed with someone he can't have, to get close to her he, “ bought that house so that Daisy would be just across …show more content…

The only thing Myrtle achieves was a changed personality as the narrator Nick Carroway states, “ The intense vitality that had been so remarkable in the garage was converted into impressive hauteur.” Myrtle did not know how else to obtain the American Dream she believed that if she acted like the rich people of East Egg she would be treated as one. This is not the case as Barry Edward Gross a critic wrote, “In trying to be something she is not, in immersing herself in her blatantly material world, Myrtle loses the best part of herself, her sensuous vitality.” If Myrtle would have stayed herself and not tried so hard people would have liked and appreciated her more, following the American Dream changed her whole perspective on life, giving it a new meaning. It is ironic that Myrtle and Gatsby’s dreams are similar, Fitzgerald did this to prove that the American dream is flawed. Everyone was more focused on gaining popularity and wealth, not becoming a better version of themselves. Morality was no where near the focus, they did not care. The 1920’s changed every aspect of the American dream. It was now about gaining as much wealth as possible, being better than others instead of everyone having equal opportunity no matter what social