The Great Gatsby

Three characters die, and each death exposes the moral wreckage beneath the novel’s glittering surface.

Myrtle Wilson is the first to die. After Tom and Gatsby’s confrontation in New York, Daisy drives Gatsby’s car back toward Long Island and accidentally strikes Myrtle, killing her instantly. Myrtle had run into the road because she believed the car belonged to Tom, her lover, making her death a tragic result of mistaken identity and desperate longing.

Jay Gatsby dies next. George Wilson, Myrtle’s husband, becomes convinced that the driver who killed his wife was also her lover. After being told that Gatsby owned the car, Wilson goes to Gatsby’s mansion and shoots him while he is in his pool. Wilson then kills himself nearby. Gatsby dies still waiting for Daisy to choose him, holding onto the hope that defined his life.

George Wilson’s death follows immediately after Gatsby’s. Overwhelmed by grief and driven by a need for revenge, he takes his own life after murdering Gatsby, ending the chain of violence that began with Myrtle’s death.

These deaths are not random tragedies—they are tightly connected. Myrtle’s desire to escape her life, Gatsby’s obsessive dream of Daisy, and Wilson’s despair all collide because of the carelessness of Tom and Daisy, who emerge physically unharmed. The novel’s ending leaves the dreamers dead and the careless untouched, revealing a world where wealth shields responsibility and hope is ultimately crushed by reality.