A main message of the American Dream is the idea of upward mobility. With hard work, education, and perseverance, anyone should quickly and easily move through the social ranks. Classes, except for a prosperous middle class, are not even supposed to exist. This is usually not the case. The 1920's was an era with two faces. One side included glamorous parties, extravagance, and easy money. The other showed the plight of the skilled craftsmen and independent business owners. Mechanization was quickly forcing them out of business, denying them the chance at upward mobility no matter how hard they tried. George and Myrtle Wilson belong to this second class of people, each struggling to survive in their own way. While George continues day after day with the false hope of success, his wife turns to an affair with the wealthy Tom Buchanan of East Egg. The character of Myrtle Wilson in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby is driven by her belief that she is of a greater social caliber than indicated by her life in the valley of ashes with George; it is this idea that inspires her intense longing for escape through her relationship with Tom which ends in her violent death. .
The first example of this longing seen in Myrtle's life can be traced back to her marriage with George and the following depression. When she discovers that George had used a borrowed suit at their wedding, she "cried to beat the band all afternoon."(pg. 15) It is in this scene that it becomes apparent how disillusioned she has become with her life. She had married George in the hopes that "he knew something about breeding," and the ordeal with the suit has shown her that she was mistaken. George had been her way to escape her previous condition, but the lift in the social hierarchy she had expected did not occur. She realizes that she is tied down in an unfulfilling relationship with no hope of improvement and little hope of escape.