Does Fitzgerald Present Myrtle's Struggles In The Great Gatsby

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Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby explores the lives of America’s wealthiest and poorest individuals, narrated by Nick, a supposedly unbiased storyteller. It reveals the parallels between the two social groups— the Buchanans and Gatsby, who belong to America’s elite groups, and the Wilsons, who reside in an impoverished region of the East Coast—and how their lives intertwine in unexpected ways. Although The Great Gatsby demonstrates the mobility between social classes, it expresses that despite having reached or trying to reach a higher status, a person's success will always be tied to their upbringing. Fitzgerald conveys the possibility that achieving a better life is possible, however Gatsby’s character reveals how someone’s past directly/negatively impacts their …show more content…
The author’s use of imagery to describe her passing paints a disturbing picture that highlights how, despite the opportunities offered to her by Tom, she was unsuccessful in creating a better life for herself. Specifically, the description of her having been “knelt in the road and mingled her thick dark blood with the dust” implies that she is permanently trapped in the Valley of Ashes, an industrial city where people who are generally less well off reside. This can be inferred because the blood, which had previously given her life, is now spilled onto and mixed with the dust on the ground of the city. Her death and the idea that her life is combining with the street below her signifies the idea of “ashes to ashes” and is a reminder of the inescapable cycle that everything ends where it began. This can also be applied to mobility between classes because even though she tried to climb the social ladder she was ultimately unsuccessful due to her background and is now permanently tied to the place where she
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