Home > The Great Gatsby Summary & Study Guide > The Great Gatsby Group > Discussion Board

Describe Myrtle's sister.

describe myrtle's sister

According to Myrtle, her sister Catherine is very beautiful, and regarded as such by "people who ought to know." Fitzgerald's description of her bears this out, with one odd exception:

[Catherine] was 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.

Catherine is stylish, wearing numerous bracelets, but she does not demonstrate especially smooth social skills. When Nick first sees her, she hurries into the room, looks around "possessively," and laughs "immoderately" when she talks to Nick. Catherine's home is a hotel room she shares with a girlfriend.

Catherine is supportive of Myrtle's illicit relationship with Tom, but she is naive. She believes that the only reason Tom won't leave his wife is that Daisy is Catholic. She also believes that eventually Tom and Myrtle will get married. After Myrtle's death, Catherine protects her dead sister's honor by testifying at the inquest that Myrtle had loved her husband and had taken part in no "mischief" at all. Crying into her hankie, she was a very convincing liar.