The portrayal of women in The Great Gatsby

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The portrayal of women in The Great Gatsby

Since the concept of society exists, women have been classified

differently from men. Women have always been the "weak sex", which is

meant to obey and please men. This has changed and now there is a

relative equality between sexes, but surprisingly, the image of women

only started to change significantly in the last 100 years, and even

in this century discrimination still takes place. In the 1930's

society had still a very primitive view of women, even if they had

acquired rights such as the right to vote, this had just occurred in

the 1920's. Most men still had the thought that women should only stay

home and raise children, that they should not be involved in politics,

and their ideas were not valuable.

From the start of the book we can see that women in the book are

portrayed, as naïve, brainless and that they can be easily

manipulated. We first notice this with Daisy's description, and then

Myrtle's, Jordan is kind of an exception, but she doesn't have much of

a significant part in the story. Daisy is described as sensitive,

materialistic, and she believes in everything she hears. I think that

the fact that she is blonde is because of the popular saying that

"blondes are stupid". Throughout the book we can see that as a matter

of fact daisy is the image of what is supposed to be a high class

women, she is not too bright, aware of her prettiness, and style

"sophisticated god I'm sophisticated" daisy, pg 18 and thinks that the

world revolves around her, and she hardly does anything by herself,

Daisy isn't totally in control of her own life, as she hasn't got the

courage to change What she is unhappy with, in fear of the public

opinion, With Daisy the autho...

... middle of paper ...

... or emotions. By

giving such superficial information about them the reader gets the

idea that they are foolish, and not too bright. Neither of them has a

really important role in the plot, or is fundamental in crucial times

of the story. They don't participate with ideas. Daisy is Gatsby's

dream, for all he lives and she is portrayed as an "unreachable jewel"

almost as an object, something that does not exist, and will never be

reached. Definitely women have a secondary role in the book, the

narrator is a man, important phrases are said by a man, and It's men

who are described deeply, the whole story spins around them. In the

1930's it was a common idea to think women had a secondary l role in

life, maybe F. Scott Fitzgerald had this ideology, or he was trying to

reflect society as accurately as possible, and for this reason he put

women on a second plan.

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