Oppression Of Women In The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald

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Men have a tumultuous history when it comes to their relationship with women. Throughout history, Men have both held women up as paragons of virtue and dismissed their experiences as childish. Both extremes are harmful and limiting, as is shown in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. Throughout the novel, Tom Buchanan and Jay Gatsby vie for the love of Daisy Buchanan. Gatsby fell in love with Daisy five years before the book began, but was forced to leave her due to being drafted into World War I. After the war, he decides to go to Oxford in order to earn the money he told Daisy he had. Meanwhile, Daisy got tired of waiting for Gatsby and married Tom. Tom consistently cheats on Daisy, is abusive towards his mistress, and is a bad person …show more content…

Jordan Baker, a professional golfer, lives in the same city as her only family member. After she goes to dinner with a childhood friend, Tom complains “they oughtn’t to let her run around the country this way” (19). It seems that Tom has a problem with the fact that she isn't married and has come without a man. Later in the book, Tom feels so “perturbed at Daisy's running around alone, [that] the following Saturday night he came with her to Gatsby's party” (103-104). Tom is unaware of Daisy and Gatsby’s affair, but he is incredulous that women can be friends with men without viewing them as a potential partner. Tom does not trust Daisy to be faithful to him. Additionally, because he only sees women as things to be possessed he expects Gatsby to have the same …show more content…

He has an affair with a married woman and brags that her husband "thinks she goes to see her sister" (26). Furthermore, he doesn't hold himself to these standards. From the very beginning of his marriage with Daisy, he cheats on her. During their honeymoon, he gets "into the papers [with]... one of the chambermaids in the Santa Barbara Hotel” (77). This sets up yet another behavior pattern - Tom leaves when women need something from him. When the chambermaid breaks her arm, Tom leaves. While his child is being born “Tom was God knows where” (16). When Myrtle's husband locks her in her room, Tom "step[s] on the accelerator" (125). Tom is comfortable being callously independent and autonomous because he feels this is an intrinsic right of

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