The first name of Tom Buchanan’s mistress in The Great Gatsby is Myrtle. Myrtle Wilson is married to George Wilson, who owns a garage in the industrial Valley of Ashes between Long Island and New York City.
Tom’s affair with Myrtle exposes his entitlement and hypocrisy. He keeps her in a Manhattan apartment, where the couple hosts a drunken party with Myrtle’s sister, Catherine, and other guests. Tom’s violence becomes unmistakable when he strikes Myrtle after she repeatedly says Daisy’s name.
Myrtle wants to escape her unhappy marriage and imagines Tom as a route into wealth and status. Her ambition mirrors the novel’s wider fascination with reinvention, but Fitzgerald gives her dream a tragic outcome. She is killed when she runs toward a car she believes Tom is driving; Daisy is actually at the wheel.
A common mix-up is confusing Myrtle with Daisy, Tom’s wife, or with Catherine, Myrtle’s sister. Pammy is Daisy and Tom’s daughter, while Jordan Baker is Daisy’s friend. Myrtle’s death also drives George Wilson toward the fatal confrontation with Gatsby.