The Great Gatsby Chapter 7: Myrtle's Doomed Life

Earlier in the novel, Nick recognizes Myrtle’s duplicity when he goes to New York with Myrtle and Gatsby. Nick remarks, “…her personality had also undergone a change. The intense vitality…was converted into impressive hauteur” (Fitzgerald 30). When he first meets Myrtle in Wilson’s garage, Nick identifies a unique vivaciousness despite the dreary atmosphere of her home. Once they arrive in New York, Nick describes her overpowering vitality to be “converted into impressive hauteur.” Now that she is in a city environment, Myrtle’s behavior becomes haughty and arrogant. Although he initially does not see Myrtle’s duplicity, Fitzgerald discloses that Wilson has now become aware of Myrtle’s dual nature. Nick notes, “He had discovered that Myrtle had some sort of life apart from him in another world…” (Fitzgerald 124). Nick describes New York as “another world” because its urban environment enables citizens to behave as they desire without being confined. In New York, Myrtle is capable of creating a life that is independent from Wilson; furthermore, Wilson ultimately grows sick by recognizing his wife’s desire to have another life. Ironically, when Myrtle gets hit by a car, the police inform Tom that there were two cars on the road, one that was going to New York and one that was coming from the city. The cars represent Myrtle’s life because she possessed two lives at once. Since the car which was coming from New York ultimately kills her, Fitzgerald attempts to represent that her duplicity is deathly. Furthermore, one questions whether Fitzgerald tries to divulge the fatality that cities engender.