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In F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, Myrtle says of her sister, ''She's said to be very beautiful by people who ought to know.'' What does...

F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic of American literature, The Great Gatsby, takes place in a pretentious world of upper-class snobbery that pits the "old money" of East Egg against the nouveau richeof West Egg, the community in which Fitzgerald's young, ambitious protagonist, Nick, meets the novel's titular character, Jay Gatsby (James Gatz). "Old money" types tended to look down their noses at the newly-wealthy as well as at the lower levels of the socioeconomic...

F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic of American literature, The Great Gatsby, takes place in a pretentious world of upper-class snobbery that pits the "old money" of East Egg against the nouveau riche of West Egg, the community in which Fitzgerald's young, ambitious protagonist, Nick, meets the novel's titular character, Jay Gatsby (James Gatz). "Old money" types tended to look down their noses at the newly-wealthy as well as at the lower levels of the socioeconomic spectrum. The sense of ennui that permeates the Buchanan estate, home to Tom and Daisy Buchanan, the latter Nick's cousin and the target of Gatsby's affections, is an element  of the environment in which these people live. Their stultifyingly dull existence is only interrupted by diversions that illuminate the gulf that exists between Tom and Daisy. Among those diversions is Tom's extramarital affair with Myrtle, the lower-class wife of George Wilson, the proprietor of a low-end garage. 


Nick, the novel's narrator, is introduced to Myrtle when he somewhat involuntarily accompanies Tom on a visit to George Wilson's garage ("The supercilious assumption was that on Sunday afternoon I had nothing better to do."). Myrtle is a formidable individual emboldened by her association with Tom Buchanan, who is not particularly discreet about socializing with her in public. Nick's unpleasant encounter with Myrtle includes a trip to the apartment where Tom and Myrtle apparently have their sexual liaisons undisturbed by others. It is here that, in convincing Nick to stick around, Myrtle states that she'll contact her sister, Catherine, who, "is said to be very beautiful by people who ought to know." When Myrtle uses a phrase such as "by people who ought to know," she is revealing the extent to which she has become just another pretentious, snobbish socialite. She is assuming that wealth endows upon its owners a wisdom and judgement lacking in others. It is an assumption shared widely by those in the "old money" society to which she has become accustomed by virtue of her affair with Tom Buchanan. 


The wealthy of East Egg, Fitzgerald is suggesting, operate under a different set of rules and values than the rest of us. It is a condescending perspective and defines physical characteristics according to preconceived notions of beauty. What it says about that particular society is not flattering. 

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