In every society, there are gaps between social classes, sometimes significant and sometimes not. In The Great Gatsby, the social rank of the characters plays an important role in determining the outcome of the novel. Many problems arise because of this gap, mostly due to the attitudes of the upper class towards the lower class. Occurring in several cases in The Great Gatsby, characters try to jump into different social classes to accomplish a much wanted aspiration, without success. The difference in the attitudes between people in diverse social classes, not physical appearances, creates too many dissimilarities for a healthy relationship to work out.
Myrtle, the wife of George Wilson, of the lower class, tries to jump into a higher social class through her affairs with Tom. Tom Buchanan is the reason that Myrtle tries to raise her social level to that of which should not be attainable by her. When Tom and Myrtle begin to have an affair, Myrtle gets the impression that she needs to dress and act like someone comparable to Daisy. The day that Tom, Myrtle, and Nick go out, she over exaggerates her actions to try and show off her false image. An example of this is from an excerpt from a paper written by Scott Donaldson. "Myrtle buys a copy of the gossip magazine Town Tattle at the newsstand and some cold cream and a small flask of perfume from the drug store's cosmetics counter. Next she exercises her discrimination by letting several taxicabs go by before selecting a lavender-colored one-not quite a circus wagon, but unseemly in its showy color." Myrtle tries unsuccessfully to be and act like an upper class women. "Members of the upper-middle class or even middle-middle class who want to emulate the rich leisure class must do so by buying cheap imitations or by borrowing, even at the risk of bankruptcy"(Donaldson, Scott). These actions clearly show that she does not belong in the upper class.