Love and Destruction in THe Great Gatsby

Love & Destruction
Life in the ‘Roaring 20’s’ was characterized by parties. Filled with jazz music, and with people from all over town, life was a godsend. In these parties, people often developed friendly relationships. Some of the relationships led to love. In The Great Gatsby, Myrtle and Gatsby develop different, loving relationships, and thus are both destroyed by their belief that they can repeat the past.
Myrtle Wilson, wife of George Wilson, wishes she could repeat the past to repair the biggest mistake she made. She married George Wilson thinking he was a rich, strong man, but she found out the opposite after the wedding. Myrtle discovers that Wilson owns a dilapidated gas station, and that he borrowed a suit for the wedding. Myrtle describes her boring and lonely life by saying, “I knew right away I made a mistake” (Fitzgerald 39). With her mistake fresh in her mind, Myrtle constantly looked for someone better. When she met Tom Buchanan on the train, they...