After Nick and Tom get off the train (notice how Tom orders Nick around and announces what it is they are going to do; these are clear indicators of Tom’s nature and continue to mark him as the story continues), they proceed to George Wilson’s repair garage. Much can be learned about Wilson, as well as everyone trapped in the valley of ashes, through the brief exchange. There is little about Wilson to indicate he will ever be anywhere but the desolate wasteland of the valley. He is common, “blond,” “spiritless,” “anæmic” and only faintly handsome. His business totters on the brink of failure, and he seems ignorant of what goes on around him. It is unlikely that he is, in Tom’s elitist words, “so dumb he doesn’t know he’s alive,” but he does seem trapped by an unnamable force.
Myrtle Wilson appears in striking contrast to her husband. Although she does not possess the ethereal qualities of Daisy, in fact, she appears very much of the earth, she does possess a decided sensuality, as well a degree of ambition and drive that is conspicuously absent in her husband. After a few attempts at social niceties (showing that Myrtle, despite being trapped in a dead-end lifestyle, aspires in some sense to refinement and propriety), Nick and Tom leave, with the understanding that Myrtle will soon join them to travel into the city to the apartment that Tom keeps for just such purposes. It is worth noting, however, that Myrtle rides in a different train car from Tom and Nick, in accordance with Tom’s desire to pander, in this small way, to the “sensibilities of those East Eggers who might be on the train.” The irony runs deep, giving a greater sense of Tom’s character. He is bold about his affair, not worrying that Daisy knows, but he sees the need to put up a pretense on the train, as if that one small gesture of discretion makes up for all the other ways in which he flaunts his affairs.
