In Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, the characters' failure to realize that wealth does not bring happiness brings about self-destruction. Myrtle Wilson is a member of the lower class who has an affair with the rich Tom Buchanan in order to attain the wealth and power associated with the upper class. She mistakes a car for Tom's car one evening and rushes out to the street to meet him. The car, however, actually belongs to Jay Gatsby who was returning from the city with his ex-lover. "`It all happened in a minute but it seemed to me that she wanted to speak to us, thought we were somebody she knew.... The second my hand reached the wheel, I felt the shock- it must have killed her instantly'" (151). Myrtle's faith in her possessions as a guarantee to happiness causes her own death. Gatsby's Rolls Royce, the physical cause of her...