Fitzgerald seems interested in showing that Tom Buchanan has upper-class status and an upper-class income but lower-class values and tastes, including his tastes in mistresses. Myrtle is definitely of the lower class. She is pretty but cheap and immoral, as is shown in her conversation, her associates, and the things she buys, including a one-dollar mongrel dog for ten dollars. She is married to a nice but unintelligent and uneducated man who obviously has no future. It is appropriate that they live on the premises of a dying business near a dump-yard. Tom is not democratic but just common