The Great Gatsby Minor Character Analysis

In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, a motif of “unrequited desire” runs deep through the novel, and while the main characters exemplify this theme, the fact that the minor characters also demonstrates this unreturned respect suggests that the motif runs deep in the novel. These minor characters include the girls in yellow at Gatsby’s parties, who fail to gain the recognition they desire from the wealthy. Also through the different minor characters and especially the McKees, Fitzgerald illustrates different methods that the minor characters attempt, yet fail, to gain acknowledgment. Besides the behaviours of the characters, the time of appearance for the characters also becomes significant, as Catherine, who fails to achieve recognition

Catherine, like the McKees, makes an appearance at Tom’s apartment, and Nick first notes her “sticky bob of red hair, and a complexion powdered milky white”, which shows her attempt to maintain an appearance of class (30). Yet, she does not apply the makeup successfully, and the evident cosmetics and sign of effort speak against her sense of class and taste. However, Catherine makes an appearance at the end of the novel after the death of her sister, Myrtle. Catherine holds both her sister’s and her own image in great importance, and so when others convince her “that [her sister’s] ambulance had already gone to Flushing ... she immediately fainted, as if that was the intolerable part of the affair” (156). Flushing exists as part of the Valley of Ashes, while Catherine lives in a hotel, presumably on the outskirts of the city. The fact that her sister goes to the dirty, poor city instead of to a cleaner area disturbs her rather than the news about her sister, which suggests the importance of appearances over the safety or health of her own family. Therefore, perhaps Fitzgerald makes a commentary through Catherine that the pursuit of class and self importance motivates a

While Jordan knows a little about Biloxi, and specifically that he is “‘Blocks’ Biloxi, and he made boxes … and he was from Biloxi, Mississippi”, only later do the characters discover that Biloxi is a party crasher (127). Also, box maker is not an illustrious job, and so it demonstrates that Biloxi is most likely not of new money or of the higher class. Regardless, despite his probable status, he still comes to the wedding under the assumption that he knows either Daisy or Tom, but as the conversation progresses on the hot day on the Plaza, the characters discover he is a stranger to both. Biloxi as a wedding crasher serves a similar purpose to the girls in yellow, as both he and the girls attend an event to which they are not necessarily invited and they try to gain acknowledgment from those of higher class. However, Biloxi tells many lies while at the party, such as when he says he went to Yale, yet Tom and Nick both dismiss this proposition as a lie. Tom even uses one of Biloxi’s lies as an attack against Gatsby, and specifically when Tom accuses Gatsby that Gatsby “‘must have gone [to Oxford] about the time Biloxi went to New Haven’” (129). Tom’s accusation motivates the comparison between Biloxi and Gatsby, and how both characters utilize