Explore the presentation of Myrtle, Daisy and Cecilia
Myrtle is presented as a woman that is made to look a little bit cheap, and a woman who is from a lower class to those of Daisy, Tom and Gatsby. We can see this clearly as she lives in the valley of ashes. This is almost an automatic contrast to Daisy who lives in West egg. As an egg has just been born, and is full of a future, whereas ashes are something that remains from a thing that used to live, but will never be anything again. Something that Daisy, Myrtle and Cecilia all have in common is that they’re all materialistic. Daisy is won over by a pearl necklace, Myrtle overcrowds her apartment with “tapestries furniture” and Cecilia “switches dresses three times before going down to dinner”. However this also presents them as materialistic in three different ways. Daisy is a woman in the 1920’s who has been given more rights; however she doesn't know what to do with them. She still feels as if she needs protection, and looking after, which is why she chose Tom over Jay Gatsby. Myrtle just wants affection. She looks for love in objects because she wants to feel that love. This is why she is seen to be so happy when Tom gets her a dog – which is nothing compared to daisy’s pearls, however is a symbol of a rich man’s love to her. Cecilia put her money into her clothes because her appearance is everything. She goes to college and comes back to amount to nothing, moping and smoking round the house. And so she chooses her dresses as a sign to show that she is important, and she has money so she will be okay. However, Cecilia is the only one, throughout the two novels, to change her materialistic view, and place love as more important.
We’re introduced to Myrtle as “The thickish figure of a woman blocked out the light from the office door”. Myrtle could be blocking the light from the office door, as she could be stopping Wilson from achiever the American dream. He was trying to supply for both him and her, whereas she was flaunting around with another man the whole time. The adjective thickish is used to describe Myrtle because she may be too stupid to realise the trouble that she is getting herself into, which is made apparent in the rest of the novel.
Daisy is introduced as “an enormous couch that two young women were buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon”. This is to show how Daisy and other women of her time are made to feel free, however they will always be anchored down to men.
The opening chapters of atonement describe Cecilia’s state of living as untidy; illustrate the unorganised way in which she lives. This could show that as a woman, without a man there to marry and guide her, she has no purpose. She can’t find a job on her own, and she can’t make anything of herself, she needs a man to help her succeed her threw life.
This shows how all their characters have been illustrated to represent the women of their time, however they have done it in different ways.