Myrtle In The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald

In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald objectifies Myrtle and she is only seen in instances with her husband Tom. We don’t normally hear much of Myrtle but when we do she is described only as Tom’s mistress. Tom only tells Myrtle what to do and objectifies Myrtle but she lets him do it because like Gatsby, Myrtle just wants to rise to a higher class and will trade her independence for social mobility. Myrtle has just been referred to as Tom’s mistress and she doesn’t have much importance in the book as Fitzgerald has portrayed in his writing.

“‘You mean to say you don’t know?’ said Miss Baker, honestly surprised. ‘I thought everybody knew.’
‘I don’t.’
‘Why---’ she said hesitantly, ‘Tom’s got some woman in New York’
‘Got some woman?’ I repeated

blankly. Miss Baker nodded.
‘She might have the decency not to telephone him at dinner time. Don’t you think?’” (Fitzgerald 15).

This is the very first time where Myrtle is introduced and the readers aren’t even told her name she is just “some woman” that Tom “has”.

She is the elephant in the room that gets Daisy all riled up not because she called at dinner time, even though that’s why she said she was mad, but instead because Tom answered the call and shut the door all secretively while they had guests. Even though Myrtle was just some no named woman, the fact that Tom had answered the call instead of just letting it ring shows her importance in Tom’s mind. Miss Baker said “you don’t know” and was surprised like it is some generic thing that everyone should know but doesn’t talk about. Myrtle is just described as Tom’s just she is just something he has and isn’t her own person. This is because she is called, “my girl” (24) and is told what to do by Tom and she only is seen when Tom wants to see her, she is never mentioned in the book without him. I question why Myrtle would let herself be treated like this, but she believed that Tom loved her and not Daisy. Tom is a conniving character to both Myrtle and Daisy. He tells them both that he loves them and to Myrtle he said they’d be married if Daisy wasn’t a Christian, but when he realizes Daisy is having an affair he gets furious with her even though he’s doing the same thing. Myrtle and Daisy are treated badly and to different standards than Tom which lowers their importance and

individualism.
Myrtle’s importance is shown the way Tom talks to her and pushes her around without any response or taking a stand for her own life. Tom tells her to “get on the next train” (26) when he dropped by the Wilsons’ garage to show Nick who Myrtle was. Using the word “get” he is ordering her to meet her like she doesn’t have anything else to do that day. They hadn’t even had plans and he was telling her that they were suddenly going to hangout and to sneak away from her husband for the day. Fitzgerald uses direct ways to show who has power in their relationship by having Tom tell Myrtle to do and she just obeys. The one time Myrtle did talk back to Tom was when they were having their apartment party and she had mentioned Daisy. Myrtle continuously repeated Daisy’s name and Tom got fed in. As a result, “Tom Buchanan broke her nose with his open hand” (37) and that was the end of their party. The incident just shows how much power Tom has over Myrtle and how he is in control of their relationship and over her.
Even in her death scene Myrtle was described by how she looked instead of the kind of person she was.
“Michaelis and this man reached her first but when they had torn open her shirtwaist still damp with perspiration, they saw that her left breast was swinging loose like a flap and there was no need to listen for the heart beneath. The 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” (137).
Fitzgerald described her clothes and her body parts instead of the mourning of the character by using the words “her shirtwaist” and “left breast” and “mouth was wide open”.

He even said that “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”. Myrtle had been hiding her strength from everyone because when she was with Tom she had to do what he said instead of standing up for herself. This last scene describes her relevance in the book because she doesn’t have her own personality and is just described by her looks instead of showing the vitality she

had.

Myrtle’s death was the turning point of the book because it was the most intriguing and twisted the plot line tremendously. After her death everyone just went their own separate ways and the rest of the story seemed to be a reaction to the event or an explanation to where everyone had gone and what they were doing. Even though she may not have been the most important or mentioned character, she still played a significant role to the book. F Scott Fitzgerald included Myrtle in the book to replicate Gatsby and show how people will allow such harsh treatments to achieve a higher class than they had been destined for.