Myrtle Wilson

The Great Gatsby

by F. Scott Fitzgerald

chap II

This is what I came to find from the detailed description in the book

The beginning of this chapter includes a lot of detailed description, but I also experienced some confusion.  I honestly had no idea what was going on with the description of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg.  At first I thought it was a hallucination or an odd formation of rock.  After a considerable about of pondering, I came to the conclusion that it was an old billboard. (Granted, my pondering included typing the doctors name into Google images and seeing what came up, but nevertheless.)

Besides that she's not black, this is
kind of how I picture Mrs. Wilson.
She's got swag!

Once I got over the confusion of the eyeballs, I came to the equally detailed description of Mrs. Wilson.  "...the thickish figure of a woman blocked out the light from the office door. She was in the middle thirties, and faintly stout, but she carried her surplus flesh sensuously as some women can. Her face, above a spotted dress of dark blue crepe-de-chine, contained no facet or gleam of beauty, but there was an immediately perceptible vitality about her as if the nerves of her body were continually smouldering" (Fitzgerald, 25).

Ok, so what confused me about this was that I soon learned that Mrs. Wilson was Tom's "other woman."  Daisy was described as being much more attractive, and in addition, Mrs. Wilson herself is married.  Mr. Wilson seems even more oblivious than Daisy, but then again, I feel like Daisy has at least an idea of what is going on.

So eventually, Nick, Tom, and Myrtle Wilson end up at a party with lots of different people which I feel won't contribute to the story that much.

I think they serve to show the contrast between Tom's two lives and Myrtle's two lives.  This chapter ends with some confusion, displayed in the broken syntax in the second to last sentence.  The ellipsis also contribute to that.  Nick somehow ends up waiting for a train, which leaves the reader wondering what happened and how he got there.  Hopefully my confusion in these areas will be cleared up in the upcoming chapters.