F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel Great Gatsby presents two female characters Daisy and Myrtle who despite having a lot of differences are strikingly similar to each other. They both are unhappy in their marriages with Daisy looking for love and Myrtle looking for wealth and status. Both are engaged in an affair outside their marriage. While Myrtle seeks love outside her matrimony because she is fascinated with money and status and cherishes the belief that her extra-marital affair with Tom would result in fruition of her dreams, Daisy on the other hand seeks love outside because though her husband is compatible with her in terms of wealth and status falls short when it comes to fulfilling romantic responsibilities. They both love Tom and while Tom pursues an extra marital affair with Myrtle behind Daisy's back, he gets outraged when he hears about his wife's affair with Gatsby. Myrtle's jealousy for Daisy erupts into an outburst when she hollers ‘Daisy! Daisy!Daisy!’ because for Daisy she is unable to marry Tom who is unwilling to leave his wife to be with Myrtle. The irony is Daisy craves for what Tom gives to Myrtle - his attention. Both the women whose sensuality and personality traits differ from each other are unhappy in their respective marriages, with one woman pursuing wealth and the other love.
Yearning for wealth and yearning for love make Daisy and Myrtle different from one another. Daisy raised amid wealth is married to a wealthy man Tom Buchanan, a young graduate from Yale belonging to an aristocratic family whereas Myrtle raised in a humble background is married to a man with moderate means. She has an unsated yearning for wealth and believes that hobnobbing with high class people gives her a place amidst the elite. She is superficial carrying a false air of vanity as if believing that false pride is a sign of richness. Her only interest lies in wealth and luxury. She loves reading cheap scandal magazines of Broadway like 'Town Tattle' and 'Simon Called Peter' and lets four cabs drive away before selecting "a new one, lavender-colored with grey upholstery"(p 30). While approaching her apartment on 158th Street, she throws "a regal home coming glance around the neighborhood". She talks in a "high mincing shout" to her sister and behaves while sweeping into the kitchen as if "a dozen chefs awaited her orders there" (p 34). Myrtle's superficial display is reflective of her aspiration and desire whereas Daisy dons an ostentatious appearance only when she has to. Daisy’s yearning for love contrasts with Myrtle’s craving for wealth. Daisy could not wait for Gatsby due to family pressure which is apparently the reason “she wasn’t on speaking terms with her family for several weeks.” She married Tom who was a rich man under pressure but during her marriage to Tom, she fell in love with her husband which was obvious in her reaction to Tom's absence in the room immediately after marriage when she looked around unsteadily until she found out her husband. She knew of Tom’s cheating on her but despite that she went on with her marriage. Even when the time came to choose between Gatsby and Tom, she chose her husband over Gatsby. Her extra-marital affair with Gatsby could be her search for love that was missing in her marriage but she never really loved Gatsby as much as she loved Tom.
Both the women are unhappy in their marriage. Daisy's unhappiness in marriage is attributed to her own fickle nature. She had an affair with Jay Gatsby who loved her immensely but she could not wait for him and by the next autumn after Gatsby's departure to warfront, she got married to Tom who gifted her "a string of pearls valued at three hundred and fifty thousand dollars" (p 83) but the night before her wedding she got drunk and she was apparently upset when she told Jordan Baker to go downstairs and give the pearls back "to whoever they belong to. Tell'em all Daisy's change' her mine" (p 82). But she didn't have the courage to rebel against her family's wish and she married Tom. She knew about Tom's cheating on her but still continued with the marriage. In a way she might have married Tom because she thought that Tom and she were quite alike and had more possibility of a successful long-term relationship than the one she would have with Jay. Daisy and Tom both hailed from the elite class of the society and being raised in the same culture of wealth, they were compatible with each other. While talking to Nick in an occasion, her eyes flashed and she laughed in the same way reminding Nick of Tom when she said "Sophisticated—God, I’m sophisticated!" and her smirk "asserted her membership in a rather distinguished secret society to which she and Tom belonged" (p 20). On the other hand, Myrtle too was very unhappy in her marriage and she was using Tom as a stepping stone of climbing the social ladder. She felt that she had married beneath what she deserved and she talked about 'lower orders' in a manner as if she didn't belong to them, "These people! You have to keep after them all the time" (p 69). Myrtle's disdain for her husband reflects when she says "I married him because I thought he was a gentlemanI thought he knew something about breeding, but he wasn’t fit to lick my shoe" (p 38).
Both Daisy and Myrtle are similar in terms of their sensuality in a different way. If Daisy's sexuality is subtle, Myrtle's is one of vitality. Myrtle exhibits unconcealed indiscreet sexuality carrying her 'faintly stout' and "surplus flesh sensuously as some women can" (p 28). Her vitality has a dominating presence in her entire persona as is evident when she leans towards Nick to say something about Tom, 'her warm breath poured over ‘him' which is suggestive of her provocativeness and overt sexuality. Her open sexual demeanor is apparent when she talks to her husband wetting her lips and speaking in a soft and coarse voice. Her husband George, a ‘spiritless’ and ‘anaemic’ man is totally overshadowed by her stout presence. On the contrary, Daisy uses her sexuality discreetly. Daisy dresses sophisticatedly in white which stands in total contrast with Myrtle whose clothes are a match with her mouth always painted crimson red. She is leaner and fragile compared to Myrtle but she has an enchanting sexual voice which seems to draw people towards her as Nick describes her thrilling voice "It was the kind of voice that the ear follows up and down as if each speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again." Her bright eyes and 'bright passionate mouth' with an excitement in her glowing and singing voice makes it difficult for men who care for her to forget her. It does not matter if she says something banal and completely uninteresting; it is the musical intonation in her voice that seems to allure people about her. It is such sexual charm that on one hand makes her a cynosure of Gatsby's attention and puts her at the same time in the conventional image of an object of desire.
Myrtle and Daisy differ in their personality but both of them cherish impossible dreams. Myrtle has a strong personality and she knows what she wants from life. She has a huge yearning for wealth and status and she tries every possible way to uplift her status. She loves Tom because of his money and cherishes the impossible dream that Tom would leaver Daisy to be with her. She unlike Daisy is not confused and unsure of her desires. She has no qualms of betraying her husband George or leaving him to be with Tom. On the other hand, Daisy is confused, indecisive and fragile woman who doesn't know what she wants. She lets go Gatsby because he was poor and presumably under pressure from her family to marry Tom whose family background matches with her own. When the time comes to choose between Gatsby and Tom, she in spite of knowing her husband's infidelity chooses Tom over Gatsby and let Gatsby take the blame of the accident, which she herself has committed, upon himself. Her weak disposition and her inability to take a stand make the readers lose sympathy for her.
In conclusion, though Daisy and Myrtle are similar in terms of their sharing the same unhappiness in marriage, their personalities and sensualities differ with their desires and yearnings oriented towards different direction. Both the women who are in love with the same man for different reasons seek love outside marriages. While Myrtle pursues wealth and status, Daisy seeks love. If Daisy is sophisticated and subtle in her sexual appeal, Myrtle’s is overbearing. Daisy is fickle minded and weak to hold on to her stance while Myrtle is steadfast and sure of her desires in life. In effect, both Myrtle and Daisy project the image of women belonging to the era of 1920's with a reflection on the salient features of the American dream: power, status, wealth, dilemmas and love affairs.
Work Cited
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby, Scribner; Reissue edition. 30 September 2004. Print.
