Question

How does myrtle wilson’s life differ from daisy buchanan’s

Answer 1

Myrtle and Gatsby have one thing in common: they're both trying to rise above their station. Like Gatsby, Myrtle isn't happy with the class she was born to. She insists that she married beneath her, and she tries to talk about the "lower orders" as though she's not one of them: "I told that boy about the ice." Myrtle raised her eyebrows in despair at the shiftlessness of the lower orders. "These people! You have to keep after them all the time" (2.69).

So, what makes Gatsby and Myrtle different? Gatsby is a tragic hero, while Myrtle, in Fitzgerald's portrait, is a ridiculous fool. Is it that Gatsby strives out of love, while Myrtle does it out of greed? Or is it simply because Gatsby is a man—and Myrtle had the tragedy of being born a woman?