Catherine

Catherine is Myrtle Wilson's sister, a slender, worldly woman of about thirty, who appears in the novel as a participant in the drunken party at Tom Buchanan and Myrtle Wilson's New York apartment and later as a key witness at the inquest following Myrtle's death. Her testimony, which deliberately conceals the truth about her sister's affair, shapes the official narrative of the tragedy and demonstrates the power of self-serving lies to obscure the facts.

Identity and Appearance

Catherine is introduced as a slender, worldly girl of about thirty, with a solid, sticky bob of red hair and a complexion powdered milky white. Her eyebrows had been plucked and then drawn on again at a more rakish angle, but the efforts of nature toward the restoration of the old alignment gave a blurred air to her face. When she moved about there was an incessant clicking as innumerable pottery bracelets jingled up and down upon her arms. She came into the apartment with such a proprietary haste and looked around so possessively at the furniture that Nick Carraway wondered if she lived there, but when he asked her she laughed immoderately, repeated his question aloud, and told him she lived with a girl friend at a hotel.

Role in the Apartment Party

At the party in the small apartment on 158th Street, Catherine sat down beside Nick Carraway on the couch and engaged him in conversation. She revealed that she had been to a party at Gatsby's house about a month ago, and she repeated the rumor that Gatsby was a nephew or a cousin of Kaiser Wilhelm's, adding that she was scared of him and would hate to have him get anything on her. Later, she leaned close to Nick and whispered that neither Tom nor Myrtle could stand the person they were married to, and that if she were them she would get a divorce and get married to each other right away. When Nick asked if Myrtle liked her husband George Wilson, Catherine answered unexpectedly, explaining that it was really Tom's wife Daisy who was keeping them apart, because she was a Catholic and they don't believe in divorce—a lie, since Daisy was not a Catholic, and Nick was a little shocked at the elaborateness of the deception. Catherine also claimed that when Tom and Myrtle did get married, they were going West to live for a while until it blew over, and when Nick suggested Europe would be more discreet, she exclaimed that she had just gotten back from Monte Carlo the previous year with another girl, having had over twelve hundred dollars when they started but getting gypped out of it all in two days in the private rooms.

Testimony at the Inquest

After Myrtle Wilson's death, Catherine became a principal figure at the inquest. When Michaelis's testimony brought to light George Wilson's suspicions of his wife, Nick thought the whole tale would shortly be served up in racy pasquinade, but Catherine, who might have said anything, didn't say a word. She showed a surprising amount of character about it, looking at the coroner with determined eyes under that corrected brow of hers and swearing that her sister had never seen Gatsby, that her sister was completely happy with her husband, and that her sister had been into no mischief whatever. She convinced herself of it and cried into her handkerchief, as if the very suggestion was more than she could endure. As a result, George Wilson was reduced to a man "deranged by grief" in order that the case might remain in its simplest form, and the official narrative rested there, with Catherine's perjury effectively shielding Daisy Buchanan and Tom Buchanan from any connection to the death.

Narrative Significance

Catherine functions as a minor but revealing character who embodies the casual dishonesty and self-serving morality of the world surrounding Gatsby. Her willingness to lie under oath to protect her sister's reputation—and by extension, to protect the secret of Tom's affair—demonstrates how the characters in the novel manipulate truth to serve their own interests. Her earlier gossip about Gatsby's supposed German connections and her invented story about Daisy's Catholicism show that she is both a conduit for the rumors that swirl around Gatsby and a participant in the elaborate deceptions that characterize the relationships in the novel. Her testimony at the inquest, which Nick describes as showing "a surprising amount of character," ultimately ensures that the truth about Myrtle's affair and the identity of the car's driver never comes to light, allowing the wealthy and careless to escape accountability.