Party at Myrtle's Apartment

The Party at Myrtle's Apartment is a pivotal event in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby where Nick Carraway is drawn into the sordid, violent world of Tom Buchanan's affair with Myrtle Wilson. Taking place in a small, over-decorated New York apartment, the gathering exposes the brutal dynamics of class, infidelity, and social performance, culminating in Tom breaking Myrtle's nose. This event marks Nick's first deep disillusionment with the careless cruelty of the wealthy and provides crucial insight into the characters of Tom, Myrtle, and their social circle.

Setting and Arrival

After forcing Nick to accompany him, Tom Buchanan leads him to the garage of George Wilson in the Valley of Ashes, where he meets Myrtle Wilson for the first time. Myrtle, a woman in her middle thirties with an immediately perceptible vitality, arranges to meet Tom in New York. She changes into a brown figured muslin dress, and on the train, she buys a copy of Town Tattle and a moving-picture magazine. In the station, she insists on buying a dog from a gray old man who resembles John D. Rockefeller, selecting an Airedale for ten dollars, though Tom decisively corrects her that it is a bitch. They take a lavender-colored taxi to an apartment on 158th Street, a slice in a long white cake of apartment-houses. The apartment is on the top floor, a small living-room, dining-room, and bedroom, crowded with tapestried furniture too large for the space, and decorated with an over-enlarged photograph of a stout old lady that resolves into a bonnet when looked at from a distance. Myrtle calls her sister Catherine and the McKees to join them, while Tom brings out a bottle of whiskey from a locked bureau.

The Guests and Performances

The party quickly fills with a cast of characters who each perform a version of themselves. Catherine, Myrtle's sister, is a slender, worldly girl of about thirty with a solid, sticky bob of red hair and a complexion powdered milky white, her eyebrows plucked and redrawn at a rakish angle. She wears innumerable pottery bracelets that click incessantly. Mr. McKee, a pale, feminine man from the flat below, is a photographer who has made the dim enlargement of Mrs. Wilson's mother. His wife, shrill, languid, handsome, and horrible, boasts that her husband has photographed her a hundred and twenty-seven times since their marriage. Myrtle herself undergoes a dramatic transformation, changing into an elaborate afternoon dress of cream-colored chiffon that rustles as she moves. Her intense vitality from the garage converts into impressive hauteur, and her laughter, gestures, and assertions become more violently affected, making the room seem to revolve around her on a noisy, creaking pivot. The conversation is a mix of gossip, boasts, and casual cruelty. Catherine reveals that Tom and Myrtle cannot marry because Daisy is a Catholic, a lie that shocks Nick. Myrtle explains she married George Wilson because she thought he was a gentleman, but he borrowed a suit for the wedding and was not fit to lick her shoe. She recounts her first meeting with Tom on a train, where she was so excited she felt she was not getting into a subway train, thinking only, "You can't live forever; you can't live forever."

Violence and Collapse

The party's artificial gaiety collapses into violence. As the afternoon wears on, Tom and Myrtle stand face to face, arguing in impassioned voices about whether Myrtle has any right to mention Daisy's name. Myrtle shouts "Daisy! Daisy! Daisy!" repeatedly, and Tom, making a short deft movement, breaks her nose with his open hand. The scene descends into chaos: bloody towels appear on the bathroom floor, women's voices scold, and a long broken wail of pain fills the room. Mr. McKee, who had been asleep, wakes and starts toward the door, while the despairing figure of Myrtle lies on the couch, bleeding fluently and trying to spread a copy of Town Tattle over the tapestry scenes of Versailles. Nick follows Mr. McKee out, and the event ends with a fragmented, dreamlike sequence where Nick finds himself standing beside Mr. McKee's bed, looking at a portfolio of photographs, and then lying half asleep in the cold lower level of Pennsylvania Station, waiting for the four o'clock train.

Significance and Aftermath

The party at Myrtle's apartment is a microcosm of the novel's central themes: the performance of social status, the brutality of the wealthy, and the tragic consequences of desire. It is the first time Nick witnesses the violent reality behind Tom Buchanan's polished exterior, and it solidifies his growing disgust with the careless, destructive behavior of the East Egg elite. The event also reveals Myrtle's desperate aspiration to escape her life, her willingness to perform a role she cannot sustain, and the ultimate futility of her ambitions. The broken nose is a physical manifestation of the violence that underlies the Jazz Age's glittering surface, a violence that will later culminate in Myrtle's death. The party's chaotic, drunken atmosphere, with its mix of casual cruelty and desperate gaiety, foreshadows the moral emptiness and tragic consequences that define the novel's climax.