Myrtle Wilson In The Great Gatsby

In The Great Gatsby’s introduction of the valley of ashes, Nick Carraway defines it as “a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes take the forms […] of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air” (Fitzgerald 23). It is ironic then that in this garden grows Myrtle, whom Nick describes as having a “perceptible vitality about her as if the nerves of her body were continually smouldering” (23). If Myrtle resides in a garden of abject poverty, why would author F. Scott Fitzgerald choose to make her an evergreen of spirited life? The answer could be that a life of poverty may still be richer than one lived in superficial wealth. Myrtle Wilson is anxious to escape her station in life. She hopes to leave the valley of ashes via her lover Tom Buchanan, a wealthy man of East Egg who …show more content…
Thinking Tom could rescue her, Myrtle is brutally deceived again. Describing the car accident scene, Nick recalls “[her] mouth was wide open and ripped at the corners as though she had choked a little in giving up the tremendous vitality she had stored so long” (Fitzgerald 137). In her attempt to change her social status, Myrtle chokes on her spirit that only seems to live in the valley of ashes. Ironically Tom’s wife Daisy, driving the car, kills Myrtle’s vitality once and for all. Daisy is the opposite of vitality. Nick recognizes that her vitality is only an illusion created by Gatsby (Fitzgerald 95). Finally moving beyond the illusion, Gatsby sees that Daisy’s “voice is full of money” (120). When Daisy has the opportunity to leave the revered financial status connected with Tom and stay with the questionable monetary success of Gatsby, Nick realizes, “she had never, all along, intended doing anything at all” (132). Daisy has no strength to leave her wealthy station in