Jay Gatsby And Myrtle Wilson Analysis

2537 Words6 Pages

Lexi Dacosta
Ms. Rivard
Pre-AP English
27 February 2014
Jay Gatsby and Myrtle Wilson: Two similar and different characters
For years people have come to America in search of a better life and more importantly, wealth. Where there is money there is hope. Scott F. Fitzgeralds novel, The Great Gatsby, two characters symbolizes this exact dream. Jay Gatsby and Myrtle Wilson are two very different, but also, awfully similar characters. Both share the same hope of stepping above their poor social classes to have wealth and gain the affections they desire from their lovers. Although in the end each do not reach their goals they do show the vitality and the want that is really in each person. They want to become better, to have money and to reach your dreams and goals.
Jay Gatsby and Myrtle Wilson. Two characters who seem to have nothing in common at all but really, have quite a lot in common. Even though both had seemingly no knowledge of each other throughout the book, both characters seem to have many events that are similar. Although Gatsby presented himself as a wealthy man he himself, like Mryle, was a poor working class fellow at first. Replacing his original name, James "Jimmy" Gatz, Gatsby was born to poor farmers in Minnesota. But that was not the life Gatsby had envisioned for himself. He did not really believe his parents to be his and he did not believe his life to be the one that he deserved. He studied how to act and be a wealthy person. How to act, think, respond, Gatsby studied every inch of it. How can a poor farmer from Minnesota gain wealth and presidence out in the world though? He thought he had struck gold by a chance encounter with Dan Cody, a rich man who takes Gatsby on as...

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.... He didn't have a real love for Mrtyle whereas she did in her own way to love him. She wanted to have more than just an affair with him. Mrtyle wanted to become Daisy and become his bride and become rich with him. But none of that happened just like Daisy didn't really leave Tom for Gatsby like she had made it seem like she would.
Jay Gatsby and Myrtle Wilson, both symbolize the American dream that people go after, the want for wealth and power and to be in the higher social class. That is why Fitzgerald has two such different but similar characters in the novel. To show how high they want for money is, how much hope it really brings to people. Too much money is everything, money is a means for survival in this world. And that's what Gatsby and Myrtle show through their high vitality and high levels of want and need to become part of the wealthy social class.

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