The Great Gatsby
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Is Myrtle Pregnant?
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Geoffrey wrote: "Interesting analysis. It would explain as to why Myrtle ran out to meet Tom in the car as she was getting desperate as to the baby's and her future.I would fault your comments about Wilson's intel..."
Wilson is pretty stupid, though. Fitzgerald purposefully does that to show the distinctions between the classes. Myrtle talks informally by mistake and Wilson is in the same class as her. People in the same class are often highly similar, because Fitzgerald shows class as a fundamental personality trait. I think Gary's idea makes sense.
Gary wrote: "Why should he do a hit and run? Gatsby has no motive to kill Myrtle. He doesn't even know who she is. (See issue #2 below.) If he was driving the car the worst he'd have been charged with would be something like manslaughter, vehicular homicide, or whatever term they use in New York at that time, and even being charged in the first place is doubtful given the circumstances of that killing."The main reason Gatsby cannot stop is because he's involved with organized crime figure Meyer Wolfsheim in an illegal bond scam. Having his name dragged through the mud in the newspapers would stop people coming to his parties, which are designed to attract suckers to buy his worthless bonds. By stopping his car and facing the music he and Wolfsheim would stand to lose millions.
Gary wrote: "Or it could just be, as the text indicates, she was driving and he's now willing to accept the responsibility in order to protect her.
Actually, it is Nick who suggests Gatsby was driving. Gatsby simply agrees to it. Blaming Daisy to Nick--and to no one else--serves two purposes: a) it makes Gatsby look heroic in Nick's eyes and b) it gives Gatsby a reason for not stopping the car.
Gatsby's tried three times to recruit Nick, a bond salesman, into his bond scam. Nick admires Gatsby, thinks he's "gorgeous" and gushes over him when Gatsby smiles at him.
He had one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced, or seemed to face, the whole external world for an instant and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself.(Ew-w!)
Gary wrote: "If we're to believe Gatsby was really driving, and wants to blame Daisy, we're also to believe he doesn't go to anyone else with that story, nor does he turn her in, which would be the way a guilty person trying to frame someone else would go about it."
Gatsby would keep it a secret--between himself and Nick--because he needs Daisy's favor in order to sell bonds to her wealthy friends. Besides, it would be his word against hers, and all the other witnesses saw a man driving.
Gary wrote: "For the either driver to speed off, they'd have to know who it was run down. Otherwise, it makes little sense for either of them to run..."
Not necessarily. Gatsby couldn't stop for the reason I just mentioned; he can't afford to have his name in the papers because it would interfere with his sales of illicit bonds. He can't afford to be investigated at all by the police because it would reveal his connections with the notorious Meyer Wolfsheim, a well-known crime figure who infamously fixed the 1919 World Series.
Gary wrote: "...why doesn't Daisy hit the brakes? "
She wasn't driving. It was Gatsby.
To believe Daisy was driving you have to accept the word of Jay Gatsby--a criminal bootlegger who lies (and most likely far worse) for a living, who concocted an outrageous lie to Nick about his family history, who is involved with a notorious kingpin in organized crime (Wolfsheim) in a fraud to sell illicit worthless bonds--over contradictory testimony of multiple eyewitnesses, some of whom were interrogated by a policeman at the scene of the accident and one of whom, Michaelis, was sworn in at the inquest. One hundred percent of these eyewitnesses say a woman wasn't driving, yet Nick chooses to believe a confirmed liar and criminal.
Gatsby has everything to gain by lying to Nick and nothing to lose because it's his word against Daisy's, at worst.
On what basis can Nick justify believing that Daisy was driving, given Gatsby's history of lying to him about his family history and exaggerating his attendance at Oxford?
On what basis do you believe Gatsby? Because you like him? If so, is it because you're forced to see Gatsby through Nick's biased eyes?
Gary wrote: "Everyone else saw what was going on. Wouldn't a driver's first reaction be to try to slow?"
An experienced driver's first reaction would be to simultaneously swing the wheel and hit the brakes. We must assume that there wasn't enough time to avoid a collision. Perhaps Gatsby and Daisy were absorbed in their plight, distracted in a discussion about the Plaza Hotel confrontation. Maybe he was trying to convince her he wasn't a crook.
What is unquestionable is that regardless who was driving, it was Gatsby's car and his responsibility to stop and render aid. He chose to run, a cowardly selfish choice revealing his corrupt character. And it is Gatsby's corrupt choice to run that leads directly to his death. Had he stopped to render aid, Wilson would not have a reason to hunt him down and kill him.
Dramapuppy wrote: "Geoffrey wrote: "Interesting analysis. It would explain as to why Myrtle ran out to meet Tom in the car as she was getting desperate as to the baby's and her future.I would fault your comments abo..."
SF tars the lower classes by his valley of ashes description of their environment, but I would be hard pressed to argue for Wilson's stupidity. Where do you have evidence of that?
Geoffrey wrote;"SF tars the lower classes by his valley of ashes description of their environment, but I would be hard pressed to argue for Wilson's stupidity. Where do you have evidence of that?"
I agree with you, and I don't think Fitzgerald would show the lower classes in this novel as stupid, but he does show us that the richer classes are. Tom is a good example of this; despite his education, he is an ignorant jerk and nothing about him exudes higher intelligence.
Yes, pretty much everyone in this novel is stupid. I do not know for sure that Wilson isn't smart, but I do know that Myrtle isn't and people in the same class are usually similar. This is because class is fundamental to a person's identity in this book. Myrtle is shown to be stupid by speaking informally and reading trashy magazines like the "Town Tattle" and a "moving picture magazine."You could also say that no one is intelligent (except Nick and the new money people, arguably) because they don't see the extent of classism in America. Myrtle still dreams of becoming rich, not realizing that it will never happen.
Gary wrote: "did Daisy kill her on purpose in order to protect her marriage, her reputation, and the position of her own child? ..."Is there any evidence that Daisy actually knows who Myrtle is? Daisy knows Tom is having an affair, but how would she know it was specifically with Myrtle? Daisy has never been to the garage, Daisy only knows that some woman calls her husband.
Gary wrote: "Is Myrtle suicidal?..."Interesting ideas. I had thought before about Myrtle being suicidal. At any rate, her words ' You can't live forever' are certainly foreshadowing. If she thinks the affair with Tom is over, Myrtle could easily be suicidal.
Christine wrote: "If she thinks the affair with Tom is over, Myrtle could easily be suicidal."Agreed. Myrtle is consistently dramatic and over-wrought throughout the book. At the very least, she's capable of suicidally stupid histrionics, like running out in front of a moving car.
Again, the idea that Myrtle might be suicidal is not, in and of itself, indicative that she was pregnant, but a pregnancy would act as an additional factor in that motivator for her behavior.
Gary wrote: "Part 3: The Counter-Evidence, and Counter-Counter-Evidence..."Very interesting analysis. I wonder, though, would Daisy care enough to be bothered with hiring a detective to trace Tom's lover? She does not seem to actually like Tom very much, let alone be that jealous. Daisy just doesn't seem like the murdering kind to me. (She has a lot of faults, but not a murderer.)
In the 1920's I don't think people talked about pregnancies like they do today. (Maybe they did, I am just guessing.) It seems to me it would have been more of a taboo subject, maybe Myrtle would not say anything until she knew 'for sure' -- because she is not obviously showing it yet. I agree that George could be impotent.
The fact that Catherine was so quiet at the end made me think that she just did not want Myrtle's memory tarnished. It would be a sisterly thing to do.
All these thoughts really add a lot of depth to the novel.
Gary wrote: "The dog is very much a mixed breed. A mongrel. Not only does Myrtle not recognize that, but she fails to see it in herself."Are you inferring here that wealthy people are somehow purebred and working class folks like Myrtle are like mongrels? Where does this come from? It sounds bigoted.
Gary wrote: "It is interesting in this context that the puppy evokes/references a mothering characteristic in Myrtle. She has Tom buy it for her rather than get it herself. Even in the 1920s a woman didn't need a man to buy her a dog."
Myrtle having Tom buy her the dog in Nick's presence was a means of testing her control over him with the dual purpose of demonstrating her "possession" of Tom. This is typical of many mistresses. Cash is demeaning, so the insecure may wheedle expensive gifts from their paramours. The dog was perhaps just one of many "trinkets."
Christine wrote: "I wonder, though, would Daisy care enough to be bothered with hiring a detective to trace Tom's lover? She does not seem to actually like Tom very much, let alone be that jealous.The private investigator thing is only a possibility. The only indication that she might do something like that comes from Tom's readiness to look into Gatsby's background, and Tom never says "private investigator" outright either. The information he gets on Gatsby is mostly about where Gatsby's money comes from, and may be the kind of thing a man of his circle could get by "asking around" among his "friends" who also have money. However, he does also indicate that he'll be digging further once he clues in to Daisy's relationship with Gatsby. Again, he never says "private investigator" but I think that's where he's going with his comments.
That said, the book doesn't say anything about Daisy doing the same. Though their relationship is certainly tumultuous, and Daisy has a flippant demeanor, I would suggest that Daisy and Tom are much more alike than not. At one point she teases Tom (at one of Gatsby's parties) about lending him a pen so he can take down numbers. But one of the themes of the book is infidelity, and at the levels of wealth that Daisy and Tom are in, people do all kinds of things that we ordinary mortals don't necessarily do.
Christine wrote: "Daisy just doesn't seem like the murdering kind to me. (She has a lot of faults, but not a murderer.)"
There are murderers and there are murderers. And, of course, the book is about the circumstances that drive one man to murder another. Whether Myrtle is pregnant or not, Daisy has motive to murder Myrtle, but the "evidence" is largely circumstantial. So, like a lot of things hinted at by authors, it's ultimately up to the reader.
I'd suggest, however, that one of the core themes of the novel isn't just infidelity, but Daisy as a character. Her maiden name, "Fay" has a range of significance, but not least a mythical sense. There are several comments about the seductive, magical nature of her voice. Dealing with the "Fae" in mythology is always problematic and possibly deadly. So, even if we look at the killing of Myrtle in the starkest terms, seeing Daisy in the most knowing and purposeful way, it is a "murder of opportunity" or "crime of passion" in which she takes advantage of circumstance.
That's very different from the murder of Gatsby, which George does completely knowingingly--if in error. Fitzgerald presents us with a whole range of dualities in The Great Gatsby, and I'd suggest the contrast of Daisy killing Myrtle with George killing Gatsby is one of them.
Gary wrote: " Her maiden name, "Fay" has a range of significance, but not least a mythical sense...."Wow, I never thought of the connection Fay-Fae, but I do like it! I have thought of the name Myrtle in association with the goddess Venus, who is often pictured with myrtle trees. It is a bit of an ironic twist though because the goddess would usually have power over the fairy!
Monty J wrote: "Gary wrote: "The dog is very much a mixed breed. A mongrel. Not only does Myrtle not recognize that, but she fails to see it in herself."Are you inferring here that wealthy people are somehow purebred and working class folks like Myrtle are like mongrels? ..."
But it is true that super wealthy people do a lot of inter-breeding, trying to keep all the money within the family. (Or at least they used to back then.) So in that sense the very rich would be of purer blood lines -- although I think it often caused insanity :-)
Christine wrote: "...super wealthy people do a lot of inter-breeding, trying to keep all the money within the family. (Or at least they used to back then.) So in that sense the very rich would be of purer blood lines"In countries other than the United States, Canada and Australia I would agree. But the US, in particular, is more of a "nation of mongrels" as a prime minister of Japan once declared.
I have a harder time applying the concept of ethnic purity in the upper economic ranks of the US in the Twenties, other than the exclusion of blacks, Jews, Italians, Irish, Hispanics and Asians. Even the Irish had their so-called "bluebloods," e.g., William R. Hearst.
But when the pejorative "mongrel" is applied to Myrtle, or any other character in this novel, it seems grossly inappropriate and judgmental. I don't think it's anything Fitzgerald intended because I've not seen it in TGG or any of his other writing. In fact, that kind of fascist reasoning goes against the grain of his themes. He tends to be highly respectful of the working class and judge the wealthy harshly.
Christine wrote: "I have thought of the name Myrtle in association with the goddess Venus, who is often pictured with myrtle trees. It is a bit of an ironic twist though because the goddess would usually have power over the fairy!"I think you raise an interesting point. "Myrtle" is a significant name for Fitzgerald to pick for that character.
It is said that the myrtle plant is sacred to Demeter and to Aphrodite. This is a plant that is also sacred to Venus. It should be no surprise that the myrtle plant is actually a symbol of love and is the Hebrew symbol for marriage.That is intriguing for the reason you note regarding Venus, but also if (as I've argued in another thread) Fitzgerald hints that Daisy is Jewish. She doesn't just kill Mrytle the woman, she kills the Jewish symbol for marriage.
The daisy, by the way, is a symbol for "loyalty to love and commitment."
The Jewish marital symbol is killed by loyalty to love and commitment. Ouch.
If the daisy is a symbol for loyalty to love, then why did Daisy betray that love by marrying Tom instead of Jay? Or do we have a symbol that changes its meaning in the novel?As for cocquean, how about cuckette instead?
Gary wrote: "The daisy, by the way, is a symbol for "loyalty to love and commitment.""As resurrected and reprised by Val Kilmer's Doc Holiday in Tombstone, "Daisy" was a Victorian-America nickname for "best in class" or "cream of the crop."
http://elenasandidge.com/2014/11/23/y...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfbAF...
It is dubious that Fitzgerald could have chosen this name for his female lead in TGG unaware of this connection.
This is a very old thread, and I usually never comment on these comment threads, but here it goes. I really believe that Myrtle is pregnant. Normally, when a couple finds out they are expecting they usually practice for the baby by first getting a dog. Hence, why Myrtle made Tom buy her a dog -- she was practicing with him for the baby. I have to re-read the novel, but I believe that Tom cries after Myrtle's death when he goes back to their apartment and sees the dog food/dog. He is mourning for Myrtle and his unborn baby.
Also, the dramatic final fight at the end of the novel between Myrtle and Wilson started because Wilson had found the dog leash. If the dog represents Myrtles pregnancy, discovering the dog leash would be symbolism for Wilson discovering the fact that Myrtle is in fact pregnant.
Since Wilson and Myrtle are childless after so many years of marriage, it may suggest that Wilson could be impotent. Wilson discovering the pregnancy could lead to him doubting whether or not he is the father. Wilson's discovery of Myrtles sudden secret pregnancy could cast doubt in his mind about wife's faithfulness and would be enough incentive for him to force her to move away with him.
The sudden move is Wilson's attempt to remove Myrtle from the father of the child. Leaving his business behind, Wilson would take Myrtle away from the baby's father and force her to become dependent on him for everything and would ultimately separate Myrtle and Tom forever.
If Myrtle was pregnant, this would explain why everything with Myrtle/Tom Myrtle/Wilson gets more intense throughout the novel:
1) it explains why Myrtle would suddenly call Tom at his home repeatedly at the beginning of the novel, during the first dinner with Daisy/Nick. Myrtle knows that Tom does not allow/want her to call him at his home as it gives away their affair, but for some reason she does so anyway. I believe this is where she tells Toms that she is pregnant.
2) it explains why Wilson was going to move Myrtle away -- after finding the dog leash and suspecting his wife was having affair he came to the conclusion that the baby was probably not his. Taking his wife away is the only chance he has to control her and make her stay in the marriage.
3) it explains why Myrtle would risk running in front of the car she thought Tom was driving -- because it was now or never, she needed Tom to rescue her in order to stay with him. If she believed that he loved her and that he would leave Daisy for her, then she believed that they could be together and raise their child together.
If Myrtle is pregnant, it would also make for great contrast between her character and Gatsby. A man's best chance at climbing the social ladder in this time of America would be to somehow become wealthy enough to try to buy his way into the upper class -- while a woman's best chance at climbing the social ladder would have been to marry into it -- or to have a child with a wealthy man (even if that child is born out of wedlock, that child would still be set for life). Myrtles pregnancy is the best thing a person in her social standing could hope for -- hope for a better life for her child, free from worrying about working class struggles. If Tom kept reassuring her that he would eventually leave Daisy to be with her, then she would risk everything to make that dream come true. She ran out in front of Tom's car because it was the only chance she had to provide her child with a better life than hers: a life that Myrtle herself could never have but only dream of. A life above her own social standing. A life that her child could be born into.
This desire to climb the social ladder, which ultimately costs Myrtle's life, is at it's core the struggle of the American dream.
If Myrtle was pregnant, that means that she is motivated throughout the Great Gatsby by the hope that her child can have a better life than the life that she had. Isn't that the American dream we all hope for: a better life for our children.
I feel like Myrtle is an often overlooked character. She is flawed, but we all are a little flawed. Her story is a sad one and I often find myself empathizing with her. I can't wait to re-read the Great Gatsby again and search for all the lines supporting my theory that she was in fact pregnant with Tom's child.
(Apologies for the essay. I've been thinking about this theory for a while now and needed to get it off my chest).
-Pammy
Pamela.Grace wrote: "Normally, when a couple finds out they are expecting they usually practice for the baby by first getting a dog. Hence, why Myrtle made Tom buy her a dog -- she was practicing with him for the baby. I have to re-read the novel, but I believe that Tom cries after Myrtle's death when he goes back to their apartment and sees the dog food/dog. He is mourning for Myrtle and his unborn baby."That's an interesting note to make, Pamela, and one that I have to admit had not occurred to me when I did my own reread with the idea in mind. Kudos.
The conclusion I came to is that there's interesting symbolic hints at such a thing, but nothing that one could really point to as conclusive. The puppy issue is similarly intriguing. It doesn't prove anything, of course, but it does add a nice bit to the circumstantial case, if you will.
Gary wrote: "Pamela.Grace wrote: "Normally, when a couple finds out they are expecting they usually practice for the baby by first getting a dog. Hence, why Myrtle made Tom buy her a dog -- she was practicing w..."It just occurred to me that maybe a pregnancy out of wedlock, through an affair, and between different classes, might have been too risque to write about during that time? Hence the need to only hint towards a pregnancy?
If Myrtle was pregnant, then the scenes where she's abused by both Tom and Wilson would make the story a bit too much for some audiences to handle with that extra layer of meaning.
Also, I think there are scenes in the novel where Myrtle may smoke/drink while she would technically be pregnant if my theory were to be true (which given the time of this novel, maybe smoking/drinking while pregnant wasn't seen as taboo?).
Maybe it's similar to another story discussing the taboo subject of unplanned pregnancy out of wedlock. In Hemingway's Hills Like White Elephants (published only 2 years after the Great Gatsby) it is never explicitly stated exactly what the characters are talking about. They discuss an unplanned pregnancy but avoid using any concrete language that would even suggest that the characters are talking about what to do about an unplanned pregnancy. The story just uses symbolism and subtext and requires very close reading in order to understand the serious topic being discussed. If you didn't know what the story was about before you read it, you may completely miss the conversation happening between the lines ( I had no idea what was being discussed the first time I read it, it took me 2-3 times to pick up on the subtext).
Any way, I'm very much looking forward to close reading Great Gatsby again soon to see if I can find anything noteworthy to add. If any one else can find anything to suggest that Myrtle may or may not be pregnant, please share your thoughts! I've been thinking about this for a while, so I'm very eager to hear what others think.
Pamela.Grace wrote: "It just occurred to me that maybe a pregnancy out of wedlock, through an affair, and between different classes, might have been too risque to write about during that time? Hence the need to only hint towards a pregnancy?"I don't have anything definitive either way, but FSF talks pretty openly about husbands and wives cheating on their spouses. Having birth out of wedlock is one step more controversial than that, but he was already in that zone. It would have raised more eyebrows then than it might today, and publishers might have balked at it on the theory that audiences would have objected on that basis. I've read a good amount of FSF's correspondence, and I've never picked out a hint of that kind of interaction. Which isn't to say, of course, that it isn't in there. I may just not have found it. As you note, Hemingway handled the subject of abortion around the same time, if somewhat obliquely. So, I don't think FSF would have shied away from it if it served his story.
That is then really the question. Would it have served his story?
The possibility that Myrtle was pregnant has some pretty significant implications for the text, and I suspect any subtlety is more about trying to keep the dynamics of the bigger, social message at the center of the story. That is, if Myrtle is meant to be pregnant then it turns the account of her death into something much more fishy than an accident. A child born out of wedlock would very likely complicate Daisy's life quite a bit and jeopardize at least part of the inheritance that would go to her own daughter and any other children she might have later. Her marriage to Tom is in many ways a constant power struggle, and her greatest weapon in that battle is her daughter. All of that adds up to something much closer to manslaughter or murder for Myrtle's death.
However, killing a pregnant woman is the kind of depraved act that is going to make the story quite a bit darker than it already is. Even Wilson's murder-suicide is not as bleak as the possibility that Daisy, even without premeditation, kills her and her child's rivals in one brutal act. So, I suspect that FSF toyed with the idea, even dangled it in his prose a bit here and there with a few little tidbits, maybe the circumstances of his real life even worked on him psychologically (*) but he didn't want to commit to it for a range of reasons, not the least of which that it would have made for a much less subtle piece of work.
(*) Interestingly, probably about a year before he started the novel, Zelda had an abortion. This is after she already gave birth to their only child, Frances Scott "Scottie". The darker issues around pregnancy and parenting would definitely have been on his mind in one way or another. Whether that affected the story/plot of TGG, particularly in regards to the possibility of Myrtle being pregnant or Daisy killing her (on purpose or not) is intriguing. It could be something he was consciously thinking of, or it could be an unconscious influence on his writing. Hard to say.
The other thing to keep in mind is that there is an investigation into Myrtle's death. That investigation fails to uncover a lot of basic facts about the Buchanans' involvement, and Myrtle's sister is strangely mum about a lot of the facts that she knows, but a pregnancy would likely have been discovered by some sort of medical examination. We do have to factor in that autopsies and coroners were notoriously corrupt and unscientific at the time, so an early stage pregnancy might have gone overlooked and, indeed, unlooked for, or it could have been simply bribed away by Tom. Coroners were political appointees at the time, and the position was often deeply corrupt. A "good" cause of death on a death certificate was up for sale back then. It's very easily conceivable that Tom, a serial philanderer and one who has done things like crash cars while on a tryst, would be accustomed to dealing with that kind of situation.
Another issue is how would Nick, our narrator, know about Myrtle's pregnancy? He learns the details of her death by conversing with Gatsby, but Gatsby doesn't know anything about Myrtle. Maybe Daisy confided to Gatsby, but she seems to keep such things close to the vest, so I don't think that's very likely. If FSF wanted us to know that Myrtle was supposed to be pregnant then he has to have a way for Nick to know, so he can tell us, and that makes for a rather convoluted story, turns Nick into a kind of private investigator/participant rather than observer, and pushes the plot into a murder mystery rather than social commentary.
Nonetheless, there are a lot of little hints and implications that Myrtle might be pregnant. I don't find any of them conclusive, but there's enough of them that I think FSF did have that possibility in mind and wanted to dangle it in front of his readers. But TGG is in many ways a story that doesn't draw conclusions for the readers, allowing them to come to their own. So, like a lot of the rest of the dynamics of the story, I think he hints at it, but doesn't give it any explicit, definitive answer.
As far as I can tell, this is only tangentially related to the idea of Myrtle being pregnant, but here's a thought that occurred to me today:When Daisy is told she has a daughter, her response is the famous line: “I hope she’ll be a fool – that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool."
She could be describing Myrtle there.
She's not describing Myrtle directly, of course, but Myrtle does fit that bill pretty well. I don't think Daisy is the sharpest tool in the shed, but she's not a fool either. She's at least got a sense of how the world really works. Myrtle is a fool on several levels. She's a vulgar social climber. She's deluded herself about the nature of her relationship with Tom. She's fooled herself at least to some extent about Wilson. She winds up being fooled as to who Daisy is in at least a couple of ways. At one point, she thinks Jordon is Daisy, and she mistakenly thinks Tom is in/driving Gatsby's car when she runs out into the road.
We could quibble about her beauty. Nick certainly doesn't think she's extraordinary, describing her in terms that might even be a bit cruel, but she's certainly attractive enough to turn Tom's eye. Tom's very willing to turn that eye, of course, but he's also a pretty successful Lothario.
So, Daisy's first response to her own successful pregnancy is to hope her own daughter will be someone who, at least in broad strokes, is like the person she later runs down on the road, creating an neat little circle of birth to death.
Hmm. Interesting. It is very possible that Wilson is impotent. On the other hand, if she was pregnant with Tom's baby then if she hadn't died when she did then Tom would have disposed of her fairly soon after the pregnancy was discovered. However, there is no actual evidence in the novel to my knowledge that she is pregnant. I like to imagine that Curley's wife is pregnant in Of Mice and Men is pregnant when Lennie kills her, but I am quite ready to concede there too that there is no evidence, and possibly even evidence against my theory.
I'm finally getting around to reading the novel again, start to finish. I was poking around though and this part stands out as being relevant to this theory: " I just got wised up to something funny the last two days," remarked Wilson.
"That's why I want to get away. That's why I been bothering you about the car."
"What do I owe you?"
"Dollar twenty." The relentless beating heat was beginning to confuse me and I had a bad moment there before I realized that so far his suspicions hadn't alighted on Tom. He had discovered that Myrtle had some sort of life apart from him in another world, and the shock had made him physically sick. I stared at him and then at Tom, who had made a parallel discovery less than an hour beforehand it occurred to me that there was no difference between men, in intelligence or race, so profound as the difference between the sick and the well. Wilson was so sick that he looked guilty, unforgivably guilty as if he had just got some poor girl with child.
Pamela.Grace wrote: "I stared at him and then at Tom, who had made a parallel discovery less than an hour beforehand it occurred to me that there was no difference between men, in intelligence or race, so profound as the difference between the sick and the well. Wilson was so sick that he looked guilty, unforgivably guilty as if he had just got some poor girl with child. "That is intriguing....
"Normally, when a couple finds out they are expecting they usually practice for the baby by first getting a dog. Hence, why Myrtle made Tom buy her a dog -- she was practicing with him for the baby. I have to re-read the novel, but I believe that Tom cries after Myrtle's death when he goes back to their apartment and sees the dog food. He is mourning for Myrtle and his unborn baby"I think I'm going to give the Great Gatsby another read soon. Winter is coming, so why not. This time, I'm going to focus more on Tom. I was wondering about his previous affairs -- there were many I think, so how did those affairs end? Did they end? I can't remember if this was mentioned or not.
One thing I never quite got with Tom was his obsession with horse breeding. I get the racist ideas where he goes on about breeding and how some races than others, and all that. But I feel like there's a bit more to it than just racism.
There's a quote where he keeps trying to tell several times, but I think he always got interrupted before he could finish making his point. I think he tried to tell Gatsby this quote too. Something about how most people were turning stables into garages, for their fancy cars, but he turns garages into stables, or something. I wonder if all the affairs he was having was comparable to breeding horses. If he thought he was a stallion and wanted to have more kids to carry on his genes. I just feel like maybe there's something more to all that horse talk and that quote he kept trying to tell, but never finishes.
Maybe Daisy had her one child, her Pam, and that was it, she was done with having children and wasn't going to have any more. Maybe that was a motivating factor for Tom and his affairs, he thought of himself as a stallion who could and should have more kids, him being the stud he thought he was. The way they played house, with the apartments -- I don't know, something tells me Myrtle was pregnant, and if she was, maybe that was his goal? Not just an accidental pregnancy, but maybe that's why he has mistresses -- to breed and have his superior genes carry on.
Another thing, did he leave his mistresses prior to Myrtle? Surely she wasn't the first he cheated with. Did he pay them off, with apartments and money and all that comes with being his mistress? He could afford it. He set up one apartment with Myrtle, are we to believe she was the first mistress he did this with? One could presume he gave her the same sort of treatment he gave his other mistresses. Did he have many Myrtles, in many apartments, and possibly many children from those affairs?
And lastly, at the end when Nick bumps into him, I think Tom was buying jewelry. Is it stated that this jewelry would be for his next mistress? Or just implied? I doubt he would have stopped his cheating ways, so I imagine the cycle would continue. Did he ever buy Myrtle jewelry, or Daisy? I can't recall.
Daisy knew about his cheating ways before Myrtles death, so I imagine not much changed afterwards. If she stayed before, she'd probably still stay after everything unfolded.
From a plot perspective, the dog that Tom buys for Myrtle is there so that Wilson realizes his wife is "setting up house" with another man, since they don't own a dog, and that's what pushes him to act out first against Myrtle by locking her up (effectively a kidnapping or "unlawful detention" depending on whatever term they use in the fictive jurisdiction of TGG) then murdering Gatsby.Symbolically, it does have a few interesting possibilities, not the least of which is that Myrtle might be pregnant or at least thinking about some sort of future role with Tom other than just his mistress. Interestingly, I saw this passage today from Chapter 1. Nick is describing his moving into the cottage next to Gatsby's house and says:
I had a dog — at least I had him for a few days until he ran away — and an old Dodge and a Finnish woman, who made my bed and cooked breakfast and muttered Finnish wisdom to herself over the electric stove.Emphasis added.
So Nick had a dog and/or got a dog when he moved in next to Gatsby's house, but that dog, apparently pretty quickly, ran off. That's an interesting little factoid to include, and I hadn't noticed it until now. It foreshadows the whole "Myrtle+Tom+dog = Wilson killing Gatsby" situation. Nick, of course, winds up more or less alone at the end of the novel, but from the start of the book he can't even keep a relationship with a dog. So much for "man's best friend" when it comes to Nick, I guess, but also for his own relationships. Nick's several relationships with women and friendships never work out either. Daisy accuses him of being engaged in Chapter 1, which he dismisses (but acknowledges the relationship, at least, if not the engagement, in narration.) He mentions an affair he had in the city with a co-worker. He and Jordan break up. He shakes hands with Tom, but clearly despises him. He would appear to be estranged from him and Daisy. Gatsby is dead, of course. He doesn't even have a dog....
Gary wrote: "Nick, of course, winds up more or less alone at the end of the novel, but from the start of the book he can't even keep a relationship with a dog...."I noticed that, also, and it is interesting. One can't get past the idea that throughout the book Nick is cold and unattached. I know this is supposed to be a part of his so called "objectivity". But is it really just an excuse for the fact that he cannot sustain relationships?
Christine wrote: "I noticed that, also, and it is interesting. One can't get past the idea that throughout the book Nick is cold and unattached. I know this is supposed to be a part of his so called "objectivity". But is it really just an excuse for the fact that he cannot sustain relationships?"It's an interesting question. I suppose, technically, the only people who wind up in a relationship by the end of the novel are Daisy and Tom. Jordan and minor characters excepted, everybody else is either dead or Nick... which at least makes his survival relatively positive.
To me, Nick reads not so much as objective as nearly weirdly non-judgemental. That's explained early on with the advice from his father, but it tracks as more than that in a lot of ways. His story arc is rejecting that naivete, but even by the end he's able to shake hands with Tom, and not out Daisy to him, which can frustrate a lot of readers, myself included on a certain level. His acceptance of the social status quo at the beginning of the novel tracks as almost innocence, while by the end it's world-weary, but the end results are the same, so it doesn't seem like the character has progressed much even if he has gone through a whole arc.
Fahmida wrote: "I like to think Myrtle in a different light. What if Myrtle is an independent woman pursuing her dreams with her husband, running a business together or on her own?What if she is a loyal life partn..."Hmmm, a lot of things would have been possible for Myrtle if she was not killed...
On the other hand, we know Tom would not have married her. I don't think Myrtle loved her husband. She would not have had an interest in pursuing a business with him. In fact, it seems she actually hated her husband.
But here's a thought. Myrtle could have bribed Tom for money, left her husband and started a business on her own.
Christine wrote: "Myrtle could have bribed Tom for money, left her husband and started a business on her own."Myrtle doesn't strike me as much of an independent woman, and it looks like Tom can probably get rid of her for the price of a used car for her husband, so it seems to me that the only way she could get money out of Tom is if she's pregnant....
It's still not definitive or anything, but having a kid with Tom would be a way of securing some sort of future for herself other than what she has with Wilson.
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I would fault your comments about Wilson's intellectual deficiency. He is a mechanic, hardly of moronic intellect. Because he is not college educated, don't underestimate him. Once doesn't have to graduate phi beta kappa to put two and two together. The vast majority of people, well educated or not, can surmise the obvious.