Ch. 2 Journal Response

Nick Carraway just can't seem to keep himself out of awkward situations. In the second Chapter, Nick is invited to another dinner party alongside Tom Buchanan. The party is to be hosted by Myrtle Wilson, Tom's new mistress. Nick describes her as "in the middle thirties, and faintly stout, but she carried her surplus flesh sensuously as some women can..." (pg. 25). She is also married; to a man named George B. Wilson, the owner of a car garage.  The motley trio continues their travel to New York, and in an attempt to be inconspicuous, Tom convinces Myrtle to ride on a different train car, just in case any "East Eggers" happen to be on the train. Myrtle acts on a whim in the cab and buys a puppy to bring to the simple apartment where everyone will gather for the party. At the party, Tom breaks out the whiskey before the guests even arrive. We then meet Myrtle's sister, Catherine and the McKees. Tom and Nick engage in small talk, but even in this less-pressure atmosphere, Tom still seems to have his stone-faced disposition. Nick finds the whole situation very strange, and struggles to understand what exactly Tom finds appealing about this situation. As mentioned by Nick in the first chapter, Tom is a man who moves around a lot, searching for the same glory he felt playing football. He seems to be a man of change. Perhaps Myrtle being the opposite of Daisy is what draws him to her. She is lower class, not as good-looking, but not necessarily more down-to-earth. It seems Myrtle finds the same contradiction between her husband and Tom appealing. Her husband is not the wealthiest man, and she complains she married him "because I though he was a gentleman...I thought he knew something about breeding, but he wasn't fit to lick my shoe," (pg. 34). Maybe she's attracted to Tom's wealthy, arrogant persona because she also wants change. However, as the night progresses, the two get into a pretty intense dispute: "Tom Buchanan and Mrs. Wilson stood face to face, discussing in impassioned voices whether Mrs. Wilson had any right to mention Daisy's name..." (pg. 37). Myrtle proceeds to repeat Daisy's name until she gets punched out by Tom, leaving her with a broken nose. As we saw in Chapter 1, Tom doesn't appreciate that behavior; Daisy calls him a "hulking man" and when he tells her he doesn't like that word, she uses it again. At this point, as Myrtle sits on the couch bleeding and wailing, Nick is desperate to leave. At Daisy's party, he didn't feel this way. He felt comfortable, like he was supposed to be there. At this party he just felt out of place and awkward. Everyone was drunk at Myrtle's, while at Daisy they were much classier. Nick leaves the with yet another bad impression of Tom.