Gatsby allows an upset Daisy to drive Tom's car back to Long Island. Myrtle tries to flee her husband when she sees Tom's car. She rushes out to meet it, but Daisy accidentally hits Myrtle and kills her. Wanting to protect Daisy, Gatsby claims he was driving the car.
As Gatsby's car approaches the garage, Myrtle, who has been arguing with her husband, sees the vehicle and mistakenly believes that Tom Buchanan is driving it. She runs into the road, intending to speak with him but she is hit and killed.
What events contribute to Myrtle's eventual accidental death?
Myrtle is hit and killed by Gatsby's car, which Daisy is driving. Earlier, Myrtle saw Tom driving Gatsby's car into the city, so when she sees the car again, she assumes it is Tom and runs into the road to get his attention. This surprises Daisy, and she accidentally hits Myrtle with the car.
As the group prepares to leave the city and head back home, Fitzgerald uses the light to foreshadow the car accident in which Myrtle is killed. The first example of this comes when Fitzgerald talks about the fading city lights.
Mica Miller: Timeline of events leading up to her tragic death
Was Daisy drunk when she killed Myrtle?
Possibly drunk from the day in the city, Daisy carelessly strikes Myrtle with Gatsby's car. She then negligently speeds off from the scene of the accident without stopping.
Gatsby's decision to take the blame for Daisy demonstrates the deep love he still feels for her and illustrates the basic nobility that defines his character.
Tom has no idea that his mistress has died in the wreck, but the reader does. The dramatic irony continues when Tom assumes that Gatsby killed Myrtle because it was his car that hit her. However, it was in fact Daisy who was driving Gatsby's car and accidentally hit Myrtle, causing the accident to occur.
In perhaps one of the great ironies of the novel, Daisy kills Myrtle when Myrtle runs in front of Gatsby's car. It is a hit and run. The irony is that the wife kills her husband's mistress without knowing that it's his mistress. This irony leads the novel toward the conclusion.
Myrtle Wilson's death symbolizes the tendency of society to favor the elite at the expense of the lower classes. Tom and Daisy, the elite couple, walk away virtually consequence-free after destroying and killing Myrtle, as well as indirectly causing the deaths of George Wilson and Jay Gatsby.
Myrtle's death in a hit-and-run car accident is both directly and indirectly foreshadowed. Automobiles are a preoccupation of the novel, with many references to cars and driving.
By choosing to describe her breast, he could be making a statement about how she was little more than a sexual object to Tom in life and the description of her mouth is significant because it's obviously what she used to speak out about her desires and the fact that it's 'ripped' could almost be seen as her punishment ...
The climax of the novel comes when the group is driving back from New York in two cars, and Myrtle, Tom's lover, mistakes Gatsby's car for Tom's and runs out into the street and is hit and killed.
Quick answer: Tom's reaction to Myrtle's death in The Great Gatsby indicates that he is shocked by her violent and sudden death. However, his quick recovery and intentional efforts to distance himself from the yellow Rolls Royce demonstrate that he cares much more about himself than he ever did about Myrtle.
First, Daisy Buchanan is the driver of the mysterious “death car”—she's the one who accidentally runs over and kills Myrtle. This is ironic because while the reader knows that Tom Buchanan had been having an affair with Myrtle, Daisy has no idea that the woman she killed was her husband's mistress.
Later that night, Tom and Gatsby drive their own cars back from the city. When Myrtle sees the yellow car coming down the road, she assumes it's Tom, breaks out of her room, and runs out to seek his help. Myrtle's mistake proves fatal when Daisy, who's driving Gatsby's car, accidentally hits her, killing her instantly.
The newspapers say that the car “didn't stop; it came out of the gathering darkness , wavered tragically for a moment, and then disappeared around the next bend” (137). Daisy did not mean to murder Myrtle.
Why does Wilson think Myrtle was killed on purpose?
Wilson believes that Gatsby killed Myrtle because Tom gave him intentionally misleading information. Earlier in the story, Tom stopped by Wilson's garage while driving Gatsby's yellow car, leading Wilson to believe that the car was Tom's.
' The car's bright yellow color is representative of gold and Jay Gatsby's newly acquired wealth. Gatsby's flashy yellow car plays a critical role in the conclusion of The Great Gatsby, as it ultimately leads to Jay Gatsby's own death and the deaths of Myrtle and George Wilson.
Then, she sees it again from the window and supposes Tom is driving. Determined to draw his attention, the silly girl runs into the middle of the road. Such behavior appears to be too sudden for Daisy. That is why she hits Myrtle with the vehicle and, thereby, kills the woman, who dies instantly.
To Gatsby, Daisy represents the paragon of perfection—she has the aura of charm, wealth, sophistication, grace, and aristocracy that he longed for as a child in North Dakota and that first attracted him to her.
This is at the very end of the novel. Of the late Gatsby, Tom says, “That fellow had it coming to him. He threw dust in your eyes just like he did in Daisy's….” And that's why it matters that Nick is gay and in love with Gatsby: because Tom's assessment is spot-on, but Nick will never admit it.
Tom's strength and bulk give him an air of danger and aggression, as when he hurts Daisy's finger and she calls him a “brute of a man, a great, big, hulking physical specimen…” Tom's physical appearance is echoed in his mental inflexibility and single-minded way of thinking about the world.
