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Maddie McClellan20th Century American WritersDr. Gary Totten9 May 2013

Material Culture as a Way of Life:

Myrtle’s Attempt at Upward Mobility in The Great Gatsby

While one of the most popular themes of The Great Gatsby is the ideal of The Amer-

ican Dream, The American Dream could not be discussed without attention to material culture.

Material culture is an awkward phrase; while material is a product of culture, culture is also com-

municated by the product. People naturally strive for material items that create meaning and dis-

play social status. The purpose of this research paper is to analyze The Great Gatsby by ap-

plying material culture studies to the objects displayed in the novel. Specifically, an analysis of

Myrtle’s apartment, clothing, and possessions will uncover the significance of these cultural

items and how they may have represented the popular culture of the 1920s and Myrtle’s attempt

at upward mobility. While Myrtle attempts to display upper-class ideals through the items in her

apartment, dress, magazines, and parties when she is with Tom, her rich, selfish illegitimate

lover, she does not possess any of these luxuries in her garage home with her lowly, simple hus-

band. The contrast between Myrtle’s two lives demonstrates the differences between the lower

and upper classes; these differences revolve around and are revealed by material items.

The cultural significance of Myrtle’s material goods will help determine whether Myr-

tle’s display was believable or a grasping attempt to fit in with her rich lover and life that she de-

sired. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Myrtle Wilson’s dress, possessions, apart-

ment, and purchases display her attempt at upward mobility and reflect both the popular culture

of the 1920s and reveal her misconceptions about the upper class. The following research will

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material culture studies to help reveal whether Myrtle actually passes as an upper class citizen or

is simply putting on a show.

Before analyzing Gatsby, it is important to understand the time period in which the

novel was written. The Great Gatsby was first published in 1925, amid the age of “The Roar-

ing Twenties,” also called, “The Jazz Age” (“Low Brow and Middle Brow Culture”). During this

time, the nation was on a high note. Basically, people lived to party. The adage, “work hard,

play hard” was more like “work little, play more.” This cultural attitude perpetuates the charac-

ters in Gatsby; jobs and actual work is mentioned very little. During this time, Americans were

said to have “no interest in politics at all” (“Low Brow and Middle Brow Culture”). For example,

Nick Carraway moves to the East solely to become a bonds man; While Nick is said to be at

work a few times throughout the novel, he spends most of his time on lunch break or on the

phone. Work life is rarely described, and we hardly even know what any of the characters actu-

ally do for a job. Most of the text revolves around meals and parties, and characters value pro-

fessions merely as status symbols.

Because work ethic was “on the back-burner,” so to speak, Americans focused much

more on entertainment and leisure activities, such as going to Broadway shows or the movies.

Dances, parlor games, and golf are a few of the many leisurely pastimes of the 1920s. (“Low

Brow and Middle Brow Culture”). The movie industry was on the rise, and most people enjoyed

going to these new and novel, “moving picture[s].” The rise of leisure time in the Twenties cor-

related with a rise in the power and success of mass media and the popularity of talented individ-

uals. “the rise of a powerful mass media created a national obsession with celebrity, and Holly-

wood stars, popular singers, and professional athletes became the new American idols” (Drowne

& Huber XV). Mass entertainment took over: “the 1920s primarily stand out as one of the most

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important periods in American cultural history because the decade produced a generation of

artists, musicians, and writers who were among the most innovative and creative in the country's

history” (“The Formation of Modern American Mass Culture”). The 1920s was the start of

America’s obsession with the rich and famous that we still see in our culture today.

Celebrities and media were not the only aspects of America that were experiencing great

success. A “consumer goods revolution” completely transformed everyday American life

(Drowne and Huber XV). This revolution produced “an abundance of newfangled, mass-pro-

duced merchandise” that was previously non-existent (XV). By the time Gatsby was published,

“even many rural and working-class families participated actively in this national popular cul-

ture” (Drowne and Huber XVi). Although popular culture originated in “large urban centers,” it

did not take long to ripple out to the “most remote corners of the United States” (XVi).

A large part of popular culture’s success was influenced by media. Media told people

what they had to do in order to become a better person. Today, media has shifted; advertisements

tell us that we are already beautiful, but their products will further enhance our beauty or capabil-

ities. This was not so in the 1920s. Because 1920s advertising never told consumers to stay the

way they were, consumers were driven to buy products to make them attractive, wealthier,

classier people. “All these forces contributed to the emergence of a nation-wide popular culture

that had never before existed on such a grand and far-reaching scale.” (Drowne and Huber XV).

Mass media, advertising, movies, celebrities, and a new consumerist attitude led everyone to par-

ticipate in popular culture.

In order for popular culture to be successful, America needed to shift from a need-based

to a desire-based consumer culture. People did not buy new things because the old were worn

out; citizens bought new things because they wanted them. Much of this consumer transforma-

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tion was due to the power of 1920s advertising. A fundamental shift took place in the American

economy during the 1920s. The nation's families spent a declining proportion of their income on

necessities (food, clothing, and utilities) and an increasing share on appliances, recreation, and a

host of new consumer products (“The Consumer Economy and Mass Entertainment”).

Previously dominated by print, 1920s advertising incorporated pictures, catch phrases,

and slogans in order to build “name brand identification” (“The Consumer Economy and Mass

Entertainment”). Advertising agencies even hired psychologists to design ways to appeal to

“consumers' hunger for prestige and status” (“The Consumer Economy and Mass Entertain-

ment). “By 1929, American companies spent $3 billion annually to advertise their products--five

times more than the amount spent on advertising in 1914” (“The Consumer Economy and Mass

Entertainment”). If companies were willing to put $3 billion into advertising, clearly material

goods had much more meaning than function. Material goods display who the owner is, or in

Myrtle’s case, who they want to become. Characters in The Great Gatsby, especially Myrtle,

demonstrate the obsession with popular culture through not only their lifestyles, but their pur-

chases. Thus, material culture studies is a fitting and effective lens to utilize in order to analyze

Myrtle’s class-standing. Material culture is not only the goods that come from culture, but the

culture itself.

Material culture studies is both an old and new field of study that is defined rather loosely

and crosses over many disciplines (Schlereth 1). Although material culture studies originated in

the 1870s, it’s popularity died out around the 1930s and continued only with archaeologists and

anthropologists (Schlereth). It’s popularity has risen in recent decades with historians and social

scientists and has only recently been used as a lens for textual analysis. The purpose of this field

is to analyze material items in order to determine cultural meaning or value. There is “always

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culture behind the material” (Schlereth 3). Material items do not just exude culture; material

goods are part of culture. While words only convey meaning, things simultaneously embody and

convey meaning (Schlereth).

Because material culture studies is a relatively new scholarly interest, an expert in mate-

rial culture studies, Jules David Prown, has created a methodology for analyzing material culture.

Prown explains that the methodology is “based on the proposition that artifacts are primary data

for the study of material culture, and therefore, they can be used actively as evidence rather than

passively as illustrations” (1). “Artifacts have the power to stabilize experience of the past”

(Schlereth 10). Because of this power, we can and should analyze material culture to learn more

about past experiences, not only in real life, but in literary analysis.

Before discussing material culture studies further, a definition should be established.

Prown defines material culture studies as, “the study through artifacts of the beliefs-values, ideas,

attitudes, and assumptions-of a particular community or society at a given time” (1). There are

many other definitions, but all definitions “embrace the material, calling it variously the ‘physi-

cal environment,’ a ‘product,’ an ‘object,’ a ‘thing,’ or an ‘artifact,’” and contain the “belief that

a link exists between material and culture” (Schlereth 4). Prown’s categories of material culture

include art, diversions (books, toys, etc.), adornment (jewelry, clothing, cosmetics), modified

landscape, applied arts (furniture/furnishings), and devices (Prown 1). “Material culture is not

actually culture but its product” (Schlereth 4).

While some argue that material culture is “devoid of meaning,” and meaning comes only

from the people who utilize the materials, material culture studies argues that “Americans im-

press their culture on the things they make and the ways in which they do things” (Pursell, Jr.

113). “Artifacts have politics” and “they can embody specific forms of power and authority”

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(Pursell 122). This “power and authority” is definitely displayed in the material culture of The

Great Gatsby, since Myrtle is using cultural items in order to exceed her current class stand-

ing.

In order to determine Myrtle’s attempt at upward mobility, I will use material culture

studies to find the significance of the material items Myrtle surrounds herself with. In his article

about material artifacts, Simon J. Bronner explains, “objects are references people use to tangibly

outline the worlds they know, the ones they try to ope with, and those they aspire to or imagine”

(14). The material objects people surround themselves with then become “markers fro the physi-

cal and intellectual surroundings with which people identify” (14). In order to find the signifi-

cance of Myrtle’s material items in the 1920s, research becomes interdisciplinary; one who stud-

ies material culture must act as an archaeologist to find the historical cultural significance of

each item (Prown). In the The Great Gatsby, two of the main ways Myrtle Wilson attempts

to appear upper-class is through her purchases and her dress.

Two of Myrtle’s purchases are textual items, and both reveal more about the popular cul-

ture of the 1920s. The first is a copy of “Town Tattle,” a gossip magazine. “Jazz journalism” was

dominant in the 1920s. Tabloids were filled with scandal, crime, and sensationalism. This form

of writing “thrived on controversy” (“The 1920s”). Popular pulp fiction of the 1920s displayed

“romance, action, and a moralistic struggle between good and evil. Other readers preferred the

new, “confession magazines” where stories of romantic success and failure, divorce, fantasy, and

adultery” (“Low Brow and Middle Brow Culture”). Myrtle’s purchase falls under the latter cate-

gory. The themes present in gossip magazines explain Myrtle’s belief that Tom and Daisy will

get divorced so that she and Tom can run off together. The gossip magazines that Myrtle loves

influence how she views her own relationships and moral dilemmas.

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Although gossip magazines were popular, they were not for sophisticated reader. “Read-

ers too embarrassed to pick up a copy of True Romance could read more urbane magazines such

as The New Yorker or Vanity Fair offering entertainment, amusement, and gossip to those with

sophisticated tastes.” (“Low Brow and Middle Brow Culture”). This is one way in which Myrtle

fails to live up to high-class standards. Each action that Myrtle takes “reveals something of [her]

thoughts and purposes” and involves “personal choices about identities [she] will display that

day” (Bronner 16). She reads text such as “The Town Tattle,” while Daisy and Jordan indulge in

the Saturday Evening Post.

The second textual item that Myrtle purchases is a “moving-picture magazine.” This re-

flects the popularity of movies and America’s obsession with the soaring popularity of the movie

industry. Movies featured, “glamour, sophistication, and sex appeal” and popular genres in-

cluded “swashbuckling adventures, sophisticated sex comedies, and tales of flaming youth and

their new sexual freedom” (“The Formation of Modern American Mass Culture”). Myrtle, like

many Americans, was likely excited by these new themes and believed that they could be true in

her own life. Magazines in the 1920s were almost “aggressively non-political” and “informal,”

and had very little “serious connection with the academic world, especially with universities and

colleges” (Bernabas). Hollywood stars and popular singers were the new “American heros.” The

1920s brought the first moving pictures that included sound, called the “most important innova-

tion in cinema” (“1920s”). Myrtle’s purchase of the moving picture magazines demonstrate both

her participation in popular culture and the influence it has on her.

The next items that Myrtle purchases are beauty products, which reflect the rise in the

cosmetics industry of the 1920s and women’s newly-discovered image. Cosmetics connect with

material culture studies because after all, even our bodies can be categorized as “objects to de-

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sign and manipulate” (Bronner 16). Before World War I, women who wore makeup, or “paint,”

was deemed immoral (Drowne and Huber 109). This attitude changed during the 1920s; cosmet-

ics were now fashionable and respected, largely “inspired by glamorous Hollywood movie stars”

(Drowne & Huber 109). Myrtle’s first item, cold cream, is just one of the beauty products that

was “guaranteed to preserve or restore the bloom of youth” (Drowne and Huber 109).

The rise of the cosmetics industry paralleled the rise of the perfume industry; while

branded perfume was rarely marketed in the U.S. before 1920, the newly empowered advertising

industry helped build brand names in the perfume industry (Caldwell). Fittingly, the second

beauty item Myrtle purchases is a “small flask of perfume” (31). Perfume advertising in the

1920s increased brand recognition. Brand names “mean something” to consumers; branded prod-

ucts “assure consistent quality” and may also “enhance or improve the social status of their

users” (Caldwell 259). France, known as the “perfume and fashion capital of the world,” became

dominant in the American perfume industry by aggressively marketing their perfume as supreme

to any other (259). “Perfumes and cosmetics came to be acknowledged as an essential part of

consumer culture and refinement” (259). Perfume represented a “sophisticated, urbane life”

(260), which Daisy has and Myrtle clearly wants. By 1910, Francois Coty had created a “branded

perfume for the mass market”; perfume was now “an affordable luxury” (261). He also made

smaller bottles in order to make the perfume “affordable for a wider range of women” (261). Al-

though perfume was valued in high-class society, not all perfumes were equal. Daisy likely

would have expensive, name-brand perfume. It appears that Myrtle buys one of the more “af-

fordable” small bottles that were meant for women of her “range” (261).

The last mention of Myrtle’s purchases, her list of “all the things [she’s] got to get,” reit-

erates the desire-based consumer culture of the 1920s (Fitzgerald 41. “I’m going to make a list of

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all the things I’ve got to get. A massage and a wave and a collar for the dog and one of those cute

little ash trays where you touch a spring, and a wreath with a black silk bow for mother’s grave

that’ll last all summer” (41). Myrtle does not just choose these items randomly; she sees these

material goods in advertising, magazines, and imagines that these things will make her a better

person. The way Myrtle describes the ash tray, “one of those cute little ash trays where you touch

a spring,” indicates that she must have seen this type of ash tray elsewhere and decided it was a

must-have for high-class people.

Myrtle’s purchases are not the only way she displays culture and class; her change in

dress is a large indicator of how she views herself and the roles that she plays. When Nick first

meets Myrtle Wilson, she is standing in a dusty garage with her “spiritless,” “anaemic” husband,

wearing a “spotted dress of dark blue crepe-de-chine.” The mention of Myrtle’s dress is signifi-

cant; crepe-de-chine was an expensive material, on the same level as velvet or satin, that was

used only for lavish, elaborate dresses. Evening gowns were “an obvious symbol of the wearer’s

wealth and social standing” and would have been appropriate attire for balls, the opera, the the-

ater, elegant dinner parties, and upscale restaurants,” not for sitting around a dusty old garage

(Drowne & Huber 101). From the moment Myrtle is introduced, she is trying to rise in class. Her

crepe-de-chine dress does not match her current status, her husband’s profession as a car repair-

man, or the modest home upstairs that she has resided in for eleven years.

Once Myrtle leaves the garage, she goes through a series of transformations as she

changes dress. Before she leaves her home, she changes into a “brown figured muslin which

stretched tight over her rather wide hips” for the train ride (31). During this time, she discreetly

rides in a separate cart from Tom and Nick. When she is out of the train, however, she is any-

thing but shy towards Tom. She exclaims, “I want to get one [of those dogs] for the apartment.

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They’re nice to have--a dog” (31). Myrtle’s purchase of a dog represents impulse-buying and de-

sire-based consumerism. Myrtle has no real reason to buy a dog except for the idea that one

would be “nice to have” (31). After her purchases are complete, Myrtle and Tom encourage Nick

to come to their apartment. Myrtle coaxes, “I’ll telephone my sister Catherine. She’s said to be

very beautiful by people who ought to know” (32). Myrtle’s claim implies that higher-class peo-

ple know better than anyone else what is beautiful and what is not.

When Myrtle arrives at the apartment, she once again undergoes change in both dress and

attitude. She reappears in an “elaborate afternoon dress of cream colored chiffon which gave out

a continual rustle as she swept about the room” (35). The dress has an immediate influence on

her personality. Her vitality from the garage is replaced with “impressive hauteur” and “her

laughter, her gestures, her assertions became more violently affected moment by moment” (35).

Each time Myrtle changes clothing, her personality changes with it. She plays a role according to

each dress. Just the fact that she is able to wear three different dresses in one day demonstrates

her desire to be upper-class. A lower-class citizen could not likely afford enough clothing to

change three times a day, and her husband’s salary as a car repairman could not possibly allow

her purchase of these elaborate dresses. By changing her dress throughout the day, Myrtle

demonstrates her capabilities as a consumer and imitates the role of an upper-class hostess much

like Daisy, chatting away about meaningless drivel.

Alongside Myrtle’s purchases and dress changes is the stark contrast between her two

lives with her husband and Tom. With her husband, she lives above the musty car garage where

he works. She claims that she never really loved him at all, and that he really fooled her by bor-

rowing a nice suit for their wedding. Even in the garage, Wilson’s suit is said to be veiled with

“white ashen dust” (30). In his Gatsby article, Ronald Berman addresses the significance of

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materials in relation to dress, specifically about dressing to show social status. Myrtle was first

drawn to Tom because of his nice suit and “patent leather shoes.” In contrast, Myrtle was devas-

tated after her marriage to Wilson when she found out he had borrowed some other man’s suit

for the wedding; clothing clearly meant a lot to Myrtle and was inseparable from status and iden-

tity in the 1920s. Material goods affect how Myrtle feels, and she places high value on appearing

successful. Women were not the only ones who dressed in order to appear youthful and show

status in the 1920s (Drowne and Huber 115).

Tom clearly understands the importance of style and dress, and Myrtle’s initial draw to

him is because of his material appearance: “he had on a dress suit and patent leather shoes and I

couldn’t keep my eyes off him” (40). With Tom, Myrtle has everything that 1920s advertising

and movies tell her that she needs to be successful and happy. The apartment that they share is

stuffed with material items that Myrtle believes displays her true upper-class ideals. It appears as

though she has everything that should make her appear to be a classy woman. Her apartment dis-

plays a chandelier, tapestried furniture, and contains art displaying “scenes of ladies swinging in

the gardens of Versailles” (Fitzgerald 33). In his Gatsby article, Ronald Berman claims the

art displaying the “ladies swinging in the garden of Versailles,” is a “clue to the way Myrtle sees

herself,” as this kind of art is “heavily expressive of ‘class’ or classiness” (88). Berman also sug-

gests that Myrtle is attempting to pass as the “Real Thing” by creating a new “self” and modeling

an upper-class role in her apartment with Tom (86). Berman’s discussion about the art Myrtle

keeps in her apartment adds to Caldwell’s claim that French culture was considered high-class.

Myrtle’s attempt at upward mobility could not possibly pass as “the Real Thing” that she

aspires to be. Myrtle uses popular culture as a reference as to how she should think, look, and

act. Although she seems to buy all the right things, it is almost as if she is trying too hard to be

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believable. Although she takes her cues from popular culture, she is not able to utilize the items

she buys in a way that exudes true upper-class ideals. For instance, when Nick meets her she is

wearing a dress of crepe-de-chine, an expensive material meant for elaborate evening gowns, but

she wears this in the middle of the afternoon in a shabby garage. Her dress does not make sense

in regards to time or place.

Second, she buys middle-class items such as perfume and magazines, but these items are

presumably non-branded and made in mass production, thus affordable for even lower class

women. If she were truly upper class, she would have bought a larger, name-brand, more expen-

sive bottle of perfume. Myrtle’s attempts are valiant, but she does not pass; her death ensures us

of her failure. Instead of running off with her rich lover, she is run down by his wife in an expen-

sive sports car, the epitome of the class she so desires to break into. Myrtle’s death represents her

the simultaneous killing of her attempts at upward mobility by the woman that she aspired to be

like.

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Works Cited

Berman, Ronald. "Oh, Science and Art, and All That": Reflections on "The Great Gatsby."

Journal of Aesthetic Education 23.3 (1989): 85-95. Web. 14 Apr. 2013.

Bernabas, Simon G. “American Little Magazines of the 1920s and -1930s- An Introduction.”

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Caldwell, Helen M. “1920-1929: The Decade of the French Mystique in the American Perfume

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Drown, Kathleen Morgan and Huber, Patrick. American Popular Culture Through His-

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7 May 2013.

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