Who is myrtle having an affair with

Henchard is worried about Lucetta more than he is worried about himself. In addition, Lucetta seems as a romantic person that gets excited about the prospects of love without thinking about the relationship itself.

When Lucetta waits to meet Henchard and ran into Farfrae, she quickly agrees to start a love relationship with Farfrae despite that she did not really know him. Perhaps this is a depiction of how women were portrayed in the pre industrialist era in Victorian England; they were spontaneous and romantic, taking decisions without thinking it through. Daisy denies everything that doesn 't benefit her, and in this case she is using Gatsby to get Tom.

Once upon a time, Tom did love Daisy, he got married to her; but somewhere along the way, he lost interest in her and found himself wanting more. Tom has an affair with Myrtle Wilson, who is loved unconditionally by her very sweet and very hard working husband, George. The women in the relationship are not innocent either; Myrtle has an affair, but Daisy does things a little. Not everyone walking this earth has pure intentions at heart, when it comes to things like love and these songs and sonnets prove that.

Love is not always effervescent and alluring, it can be gloomy and full of malicious. Her approach towards the values were completely flawed. Gatsby very well knew that Daisy is already married and still had gone for chasing his American dream.

For now Gatsby has acquired everything by having a big house with lots of money , he. Fitzgerald, 33 Tom is an immoral person. He has had several affairs with women while married, has a dominant attitude, and is arrogant. This kind of immoral personality sets up what is essentially a power run- to control someone else.

This person comes in the form of Myrtle, someone he can take advantage of and she cannot do anything to complain. As well, to Tom, Myrtle is not good enough to bring up to his social class. DuBois, on one hand, is a broken women. Due to her disturbing past, she is unsure of herself and others and is troubled by haunting recollections of her past. However, men and women took advantage of her amicability as evil people often do and made her close herself off by becoming callas, unfeeling, and protective of her already torn heart.

Thus, the illusion of Gatsby 's successful, extraordinary possession of true love is also broken, and a harsher truth that "even alone [Daisy] can 't say [she] never loved Tom," revealed. Gatsby may have seemed great for getting Daisy back, but the clutch was only fleeting, and it certainly wasn 't for keeps; this ultimately marks his failure to possess her for good and to surface.

After all, to Tom, Myrtle is just another mistress, and just as disposable as all the rest. Also, this injury foreshadows Myrtle's death at the hands of Daisy, herself. While invoking Daisy's name here causes Tom to hurt Myrtle, Myrtle's actual encounter with Daisy later in the novel turns out to be deadly. When George confronts his wife about her affair, Myrtle is furious and needles at her husband—already insecure since he's been cheated on—by insinuating he's weak and less of a man than Tom.

Also, their fight centers around her body and its treatment, while Tom and Daisy fought earlier in the same chapter about their feelings. In this moment, we see that despite how dangerous and damaging Myrtle's relationship with Tom is, she seems to be asking George to treat her in the same way that Tom has been doing.

Myrtle's disturbing acceptance of her role as a just a body—a piece of meat, basically—foreshadows the gruesome physicality of her death. 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.

Even in death, Myrtle's physicality and vitality are emphasized. In fact, the image is pretty overtly sexual—notice how it's Myrtle's breast that's torn open and swinging loose, and her mouth ripped open at the corners. This echoes Nick's view of Myrtle as a woman and mistress, nothing more—even in death she's objectified.

This moment is also much more violent than her earlier broken nose. While that moment cemented Tom as abusive in the eyes of the reader, this one truly shows the damage that Tom and Daisy leave in their wake, and shapes the tragic tone of the rest of the novel. The graphic and bloody nature of Myrtle's death really sticks with you. You will most likely be asked to write about Myrtle in relation to other characters especially Daisy , or in prompts that ask you to compare the "strivers" in the book including also Gatsby, George Wilson with the old money set Tom, Daisy, Jordan.

To learn how best to approach this kind of compare and contrast essay, read our article on common character pairings and how to analyze them. In either case, Myrtle's most important chapters are 2 and 7 , so close read those carefully. When writing about her, pay close attention to Myrtle's interactions with other characters.

And if you're writing an essay that discusses Myrtle as someone trying to live out the American Dream, make sure to address her larger influences and motivations. We'll take a look at some of these strategies in action below. For readers new to Gatsby, Tom and Myrtle's relationship can seem a bit odd.

There is obvious physical chemistry, but it can be hard to see why the classist, misogynist Tom puts up with Myrtle—or why Myrtle accepts Tom's mistreatment.

For Tom, the affair—just one in a string he's had since his honeymoon—is about taking and being able to get whatever he wants. Having an affair is a show of power. Especially since he's been taking her around popular restaurants in Manhattan 2. He's so assured of his place in society as a wealthy man, that he's free to engage in some risky and socially inappropriate behavior—because he knows no one can actually touch his wealth or social position.

For Myrtle, the affair her first is about escape from her life with George, and a taste of a world—Manhattan, money, nice things—she wouldn't otherwise have access to. It's clear from how Myrtle moves and speaks that she's confident and self-assured, and assumes that her relationship with Tom is a permanent ticket into the world of the wealthy—not just a fleeting glimpse. The fact that Tom sees Myrtle as disposable but Myrtle hopes for more in their relationship is painfully apparent at the end of Chapter 2 , when she insists on bringing up Daisy, and Tom responds by breaking Myrtle's nose.

But despite this nasty encounter, the two continue their relationship, suggesting that this kind of abuse is the norm for Tom's affairs, and Myrtle is too eager to stay in the new world she's found—or even believes that Tom will still leave Daisy for her—that she stays as well. By the end of the novel, Myrtle doesn't seem to have been completely mistaken about Tom's affection for her. After all, Tom says he that he "cried like a baby" 9. Of course, since it's Tom, his grief is probably self-pitying than selfless.

Either way, their relationship is indicative of both their values: Myrtle's ambition and Tom's callousness. Myrtle, like George and Gatsby, was obviously not born into money, and instead is relying on her own wits to make it in s America.

In a manner quite similar to Gatsby's, she consciously adopts a different persona to try and get access to a richer circle while George seems to be the only one relying on honest work—his shop—and honest relationships, through his loyalty to Myrtle, to improve his lot in life.

But Myrtle aims too high, and ends up killed when she mistakes Gatsby's yellow car for Tom's, and runs out in the road assuming the car will stop for her.

In the same way that Gatsby overestimates his value to Daisy, Myrtle overestimates her value to Tom. Even if Tom had been driving the car, and even if he had stopped for her, he would never have whisked her away from George, divorced Daisy, and married her. Furthermore, the fact she assumed the garish yellow car was Tom's shows how little she understands the stiff, old money world Tom comes from. Myrtle's complete misunderstanding of Tom, as well as her violent death, fit the overall cynical message in the book that the American Dream is a false promise to those born outside of the wealthy class in America.

As hard as anyone tries, they don't stand a chance of competing with those in America born into the old money class.

They will never understand the strange internal rules that govern the old money set, and will never stand a chance of being their equal.

This is a prompt that you can obviously use for any of the characters, but it's especially interesting in Myrtle's case, since she has two residences : the house above the auto shop that George owns, and the apartment that Tom Buchanan rents for her in the city. Myrtle's home with George is a dark, hopeless image of working class life in America: it's an apartment above a bare garage, nestled in the dreadful Valley of Ashes.

George is utterly mired in this home, even coated with a thin layer of ash from the factories outside. In contrast, Myrtle is vivacious and free of the ash, which gives her a layer of separation from her actual home.

Myrtle's apartment with Tom is overstuffed and gaudy , and she seems much happier and more at home there. The mix of high-brow pretension in the decor with her low-brow entertainment speaks to how Myrtle values the appearance of wealth and sophistication, but doesn't actually understand what upper-class taste looks like the way Tom and Daisy Buchanan do.

Tom, incensed by this outburst, lashes out with his open hand and breaks Myrtle's nose in one "short deft movement. The chapter ends with Nick seeing Mr. McKee home and then heading home himself. Whereas Chapter 1 ended with the mysterious Gatsby reaching out to his dream in the night, Chapter 2 opens with a striking contrast.

Nick tells us about a stretch of land lying "about half way between West Egg and New York" which is so desolate that it is merely a "valley of ashes — a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into the ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes take the forms of houses.

The ashen quality of the community is reflected in every element — including the dilapidated billboard of Doctor T. Eckleburg, perhaps the second most memorable image in The Great Gatsby following closely behind the green light at the end of the dock. In many regards, the mysterious eyes hovering above the valley of ashes serve as spiritual force.

They are, as George Wilson says, the eyes of God. The faceless eyes hover over all that goes on in the book — a book decidedly void of traditional spirituality. The eyes, in this sense, represent the lack of Godliness in the lives of the characters, and by extension, the society on which Fitzgerald comments. The s, for a certain sect of society, were characterized by an increasing freedom and recklessness — Gatsby's parties are perfect testament to the growing debauchery of the upper class.

Through Doctor Eckleburg's sign, Fitzgerald indicates that although people are turning away from traditional established morality and rules of socially acceptable behavior, neglecting to tend to their spiritual side, the eyes of God continue to watch all that passes. Even though God's image may become increasingly removed from daily life just as the face surrounding Eckleburg's enormous eyes has faded and disappeared , His eyes continue to witness all that passes. Through the eyes the reader has an implicit call to action, reconnecting with a lost spiritual connection.

After Nick and Tom get off the train notice how Tom orders Nick around and announces what it is they are going to do; these are clear indicators of Tom's nature and continue to mark him as the story continues , they proceed to George Wilson's repair garage.

Much can be learned about Wilson, as well as everyone trapped in the valley of ashes, through the brief exchange. There is little about Wilson to indicate he will ever be anywhere but the desolate wasteland of the valley.

His business totters on the brink of failure, and he seems ignorant of what goes on around him. It is unlikely that he is, in Tom's elitist words, "so dumb he doesn't know he's alive," but he does seem trapped by an unnamable force. Myrtle Wilson appears in striking contrast to her husband. Although she does not possess the ethereal qualities of Daisy, in fact, she appears very much of the earth, she does possess a decided sensuality, as well a degree of ambition and drive that is conspicuously absent in her husband.

After a few attempts at social niceties showing that Myrtle, despite being trapped in a dead-end lifestyle, aspires in some sense to refinement and propriety , Nick and Tom leave, with the understanding that Myrtle will soon join them to travel into the city to the apartment that Tom keeps for just such purposes.

It is worth noting, however, that Myrtle rides in a different train car from Tom and Nick, in accordance with Tom's desire to pander, in this small way, to the "sensibilities of those East Eggers who might be on the train.

He is bold about his affair, not worrying that Daisy knows, but he sees the need to put up a pretense on the train, as if that one small gesture of discretion makes up for all the other ways in which he flaunts his affairs.

As soon as the group arrives in New York, Myrtle shows herself to be not nearly as nondescript as is her husband. She is, however, far from refined, despite how she may try.

At the apartment in New York, after "throwing a regal homecoming glance around the neighborhood," Myrtle undergoes a transformation. By changing her clothes she leaves behind her lower-class trappings, and in donning new clothes she adopts a new personality.

She invites her sister and some friends to join the afternoon's party, but her motivation for doing so goes beyond simply wanting to enjoy their company.