The Great Gatsby How The American Dream

Destroyed Myrtle Essay, Research Paper

The Great Gatsby could be described as a book about the complicated lives of aimless people. The character Myrtle was so obsessed with money and reaching the American dream that it ended up destroying her. Through wrecking her marriage, staying in anabusive relationship and overall greed for money, her death was inevitable.

Myrtle was extremely greedy and through coveting the rich began to destroy her marriage. She spoke to her friends telling them; I only married him (Wilson) because I thought he was a gentleman . This escalated until she made snide remarks towards how much money her husband was earning. She stated; He borrowed someone else s best suit to get married in , which tells us she holds monetary stability higher than love for her husband. As time went on Myrtle destroyed her marriage through a hatred towards Wilson.

This could also have been caused through a common greed for social status. In a conversation with Nick she mentioned; You can t live forever, you can t live forever . This supports the fact that she felt she was at the bottom of the social ladder and always wanted to do better. Furthermore, this could have also been an indicator of the affair she was to have with Tom. Myrtle was also in attendance at all of Gatsby s parties. she along with many others was just there to be seen, although, this may have backfired when she saw the truth to how cruel and cut-throat in the rich way of life was.

Myrtle also did not realise that along with the money and power came violence. Through her affair with Tom she entered a very abusive relationship. On one occasion; Tom broke her nose with his open hand . this along with being dominated by Tom was part of her daily life. Just before the end of the book Myrtle was at home with Wilson when a fight broke out between them. She yelled; Beat me, throw me down and beat me which furthermore showed us that she had grown accustomed to Tom s constant

abuse.

Myrtle finally died when she was struck by a car driven by Daisy and Gatsby. This is very ironic as she wanted to be rich, but the rich ended up killing her. Through jealousy of what she wasn t, rich, she ruined her marriage, was abused and eventually died because of it. This proves that the quest for the American dream is a futile attempt at something one cannot be.