Stereotypes In The Great Gatsby

For the first time ever in America, during the 1920s, a shift in the gender norms occurred. The ratification of the 19th Amendment, granting women’s suffrage, marked the decade with a breakdown of the traditions governing women. Meanwhile a profound novel, The Great Gatsby, recognized the rapidly changing social dynamic. A variety of taboo is exposed throughout the novel in order to accurately reflect the era, such as impractical parties, drinking, and the new woman ideology. F. Scott Fitzgerald criticizes the disturbance of gender roles in the 1920s, through the perspective of Nick Carraway, the flawed and interesting characters struggle between traditional expectations and the progressive movement, in order to express the negative feelings

A flapper girl is defined by DiPaolo as, “a slender, fashionable, opinionated woman who partied hard, smoked and drank heavily, and flaunted her sexuality in ways considered shocking at the time” (DiPaolo 2). Myrtle Wilson is a representation of a flapper girl in the middle class who happens to participate in frowned-upon activities, such as in an affair with Tom. As a man, Tom having an affair, and normalizing it, is a show of dominance he has a right to display in the 1920s, whereas Myrtle is illustrated as dirty for her unfaithfulness. Regardless of the feminist movement raging across America during the 1920s, Myrtle’s death is a hostile attack against women participating in the same sexual freedoms as men, containing the ultimate message unfaithful women have no place in American society. Michaelis, who witnessed Myrtle's death, describes, “her left breast swinging loose like a flap and there was no need to listen for the heart beneath. The mouth was wide open and ripped at the corners as though she had choked a little in giving up the tremendous vitality she had stored for so long” (Fitzgerald 145). The aggression towards Myrtle’s open sensuality demonstrates the fear America had, and Fitzgerald warned, that liberation of sexual desire among women encouraged adultery and lead to negative consequences. As Harnett points out, “In many ways, the Twenties challenged and broke down the strict divide of masculine and feminine gender roles and ushered in ideas of female independence, individuality, and free will. Yet it was also a period of superficial exploitation and objectification of female bodies” (Harnett 68). Furthermore, Daisy being Myrtle's killer is significant, vastly because it delivers an image of the conservative wealthy woman destroying the liberated lower-class woman. In the end, Myrtle represents how the concept of the new woman will not survive in