Myrtle Wilson as the Wasteland Figure in the Great Gatsby
30 November 2007
Myrtle and Fitzgerald's Wasteland
Myrtle Wilson is Fitzgerald's vessel for illustrating the modern wasteland. His conception of the wasteland as an unavoidable, vulgar part of the 1920s society is parallel to his characterization of Myrtle as an unavoidable, vulgar character that refuses to be ignored. He uses her to point out what he sees as the faults of modern society. Myrtle is materialistic, superficial, and stuck living in the physical wasteland referred to as "the valley of ashes." Fitzgerald uses her to portray the social wasteland, particulaly the growing materialism and superficiality of modern society. He makes a huge statement about the repression of the impoverished by the upper-class in the modern wasteland through Myrtle. She not only lives in the geographical wasteland, but she also embodies the moral and social wasteland that Fitzgerald is condemning. Myrtle is the only vivacious creature in "the valley of ashes," Fitzgerald's geographical wasteland, "a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens"(23). She is not beautiful, but Nick points out that "there was an immediately perceptible vitality about her as if the nerves of her body were continuously smoldering" (11). She has one of the showiest entrances of any female in modern literature, which is a comment on the importance of sexuality in the emergening modern wasteland of society. Sensuous and reproductively ripe, Fitzgerald describes Myrtle as smoldering and the wasteland she lives in as on ashy or dusty: "a white ashen dust veiled everything in the vicinity, except [George Wilson's] wife, who moved close to Tom." (26). Myrtle and George Wilson have been married twelve years and have no children (157), obviously through no fault of Myrtle's, because they live in the barren wasteland. There are several references to the barrenness of the wasteland in the text. The most telling sentence about why Myrtle has not produced any
Myrtle and Fitzgerald's Wasteland
Myrtle Wilson is Fitzgerald's vessel for illustrating the modern wasteland. His conception of the wasteland as an unavoidable, vulgar part of the 1920s society is parallel to his characterization of Myrtle as an unavoidable, vulgar character that refuses to be ignored. He uses her to point out what he sees as the faults of modern society. Myrtle is materialistic, superficial, and stuck living in the physical wasteland referred to as "the valley of ashes." Fitzgerald uses her to portray the social wasteland, particulaly the growing materialism and superficiality of modern society. He makes a huge statement about the repression of the impoverished by the upper-class in the modern wasteland through Myrtle. She not only lives in the geographical wasteland, but she also embodies the moral and social wasteland that Fitzgerald is condemning. Myrtle is the only vivacious creature in "the valley of ashes," Fitzgerald's geographical wasteland, "a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens"(23). She is not beautiful, but Nick points out that "there was an immediately perceptible vitality about her as if the nerves of her body were continuously smoldering" (11). She has one of the showiest entrances of any female in modern literature, which is a comment on the importance of sexuality in the emergening modern wasteland of society. Sensuous and reproductively ripe, Fitzgerald describes Myrtle as smoldering and the wasteland she lives in as on ashy or dusty: "a white ashen dust veiled everything in the vicinity, except [George Wilson's] wife, who moved close to Tom." (26). Myrtle and George Wilson have been married twelve years and have no children (157), obviously through no fault of Myrtle's, because they live in the barren wasteland. There are several references to the barrenness of the wasteland in the text. The most telling sentence about why Myrtle has not produced any
Cited: Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: Scribner, 1923.