Myrtle's Role In The Great Gatsby

In the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald the women of the novel show a different role than their male counterparts in the pursuit of the American Dream. The American Dream is commonly overhanging the plot of the novel to show that each character has a different version of the American Dream. Written during the mid-nineteen twenties, the pretense of this novel is that women had recently been given the write to vote in the United States, which extended there abilities to seek after the American Dream. Even with these new rights, women of the United States remained extremely limited due to common gender roles of the country, which included: mothers were to stay home and take care of the kids, women are subservient to men, that a woman …show more content…
Myrtle's version of the American Dream was to marry a rich man and be a member of the upper class. This plan ultimately failed and she ended up marrying George Wilson, a garage owner in the ash lands. She is dissatisfied with current position and turns to Tom Buchanan, whom she thought would be able to bring her out of her poor status by eventually marrying her. Myrtle believes that by acting like diminutive towards, she is being like the rich. talking to Nick about a boy she requested ice from, she states, "These people! You have to keep after them all the time" (2.8). Myrtle does not realize how foolish her dream is, because their is no way Tom would marry a poor woman such as Myrtle. This situation is similar to that of Fitzgerald and Gatsby's as the rich do not marry the poor, meaning her plan would never succeed. Ultimately Myrtle is not able to realize her American Dream due to her social status, and unlike her male counterpart, Gatsby, she is not able to attain any wealth for herself. Myrtle in ways similar to Daisy represents the idea of money over love as she desires to be wealthy rather than to be loved to the one she is married