Myrtle Wilson is the mistress of Tom Buchanan in The Great Gatsby. Myrtle is married to George Wilson in the book. They live in the valley of ashes. Myrtle is a confident woman. This is described when Nick first meets her; he says, ” She was in the middle thirties, and faintly stout, but she carried her flesh sensuously as some women can. Her face, above a spotted dress of dark blue crêpe-de-chine, contained no facet or gleam of beauty, but there was an immediately perceptible vitality about her as if the nerves of her body were continually smouldering” (Fitzgerald 2). She also takes up the personality of the social setting she is in. Such as a character with each outfit she wears. Nick comments on this by saying, “Mrs. Wilson had changed her costume some time before, and was now attired in an elaborate afternoon dress of cream-coloured chiffon, which gave out a continual rustle as she swept about the room. With the influence of the dress her personality had also undergone a change” (Fitzgerald 2). This shows how she attempts to change who she is based on her environment. This shows all of us that she believes that she doesn’t belong in the class that she is in currently. She also shows this when she talks about George. She speaks about him like he is below her. She says, “The only crazy I was was when I married him. I knew right away I made a mistake. He borrowed somebody’s best suit to get married in, and never even told me about it, and the man came after it one day when he was out: ‘Oh, is that your suit?’ I said. ‘This is the first I ever heard about it.’ But I gave it to him and then I lay down and cried to beat the band all afternoon” (Fitzgerald 2). This points out how when she found out he isn’t very rich that she felt like she had made a wrong decision.
