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women before, after and during world war 1
the great gatsby gender analysis
women before, after and during world war 1
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Fitzgerald’s Girls The great Gatsby gives us an accurate insight into the 1920s zeitgeist regarding the role of women in society. America was in a state of an economic boom and rapid change. Society had become less conservative after world war one. The role of women was revolutionary during this time and although women had a lot more freedom now; they were still confined to their sexist role within society; Men were still seen as the dominant gender. Scott Fitzgerald illustrates the extremities of gender and social class, and the lack of independence this brought upon women. This essay will discuss the three major female characters and the ideas that Fitzgerald confronts of female stereotypes of the 1920s. 1. Daisy illustrates the typical women of high social standing; her life is moulded by society’s expectations. She is dependent and subservient to her husband. She is powerless in her marriage. 2. Myrtle represents the contrasting women of the lower class. She is an opportunist; she is obsessed with wealth and material possessions. She will do anything to be of a higher social class. She is sexualized and objectified by the dominant wealthy man. 3. Jordan symbolizes the revolutionary self sufficient women. She is independent and does not rely on men financially. She challenges the idea of a dependent woman. Daisy Buchanan illustrates the downfall of the stereotypical upper class women of the 1920s; she is “high in a white palace the king’s daughter, the golden girl”, the girl who men idolize and dominate. Society has moulded her to be subservient and powerless. She is completely controlled by her husband Tom Buchanan, who is the archetypal character of the patriarchal social system of the 1920s. She is materialistic and s... ... middle of paper ... ... a symbol of feminism, a woman who is strong, and sovereign a complete parallel to Daisy and Myrtle who represent sexualised and submissive women, who are suppressed by societal expectations. Fitzgerald successfully conveys the ideas that society thought of women in the 20s, and criticises these beliefs through the stereotypical female characters and their position in The Great Gatsby. He captures both the revolutionary changes of women in post world war one society (Jordan) and the conventional roles of women from the ‘old world’ (Daisy and Myrtle). Works Cited http://writtenontheflyleaves.tumblr.com/post/27582395186/chapter-one-of-the-great-gatsby-first-impressions-of The Great Gatsby http://poetry.rapgenius.com/F-scott-fitzgerald-the-great-gatsby-chapter-iv-annotated Jordan Baker Quotes And Analysis | Quotes about the Great Gatsby quote-companion.com
In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, women are used as trophies, forced, by society, to compete in a world dominated by men. Fitzgerald portrays these women as money hungry, willing to do anything to get ahead. Such as Daisy Buchannan, who marries her husband for the mere fact he has money, or Jordan Baker, who cheats on her golf tournaments to win, and last, Myrtle Wilson, who has an affair because she does not like her social status. This novel shows greatly how Daisy Buchanan, Jordan Baker, and Myrtle Wilson compete with the superficial world that they live in and disregard their own happiness for the sake of status.
...aughter, her gestures, her assertions became more violently affected moment by moment and as she expanded the room grew smaller around her until she seemed to be revolving on a noisy, creaking pivot through the smoky air” (Fitzgerald 35). Myrtle represents the “need” of women to be known for having money and wealth so that she is much more popular. Myrtle wears the dress to disguise her current status and act as if she is a part of the rich, but in reality she is poor and naive, but the transformation of the dress changes her to rich and conceited.
Set in the Roaring ‘20s, The Great Gatsby focuses mainly on the lives of men as Tom Buchanan and Jay Gatsby. However, it also clearly outlines the lives of several women : Daisy Buchanan, Myrtle Wilson, and Jordan Baker. On the surface, the lives of these women couldn’t be more different. Daisy, a rich debutante, is torn between her husband, Tom, or her first love, Jay Gatsby. Lower on the social ladder is Myrtle, who is having an affair with Tom, hoping to rise above her station in life. Jordan, on the other hand, is unmarried and a successful golfer, who travels the country participating in tournaments. While these women may have seemed independent, they’re still subject to the will of society which sees them as inferior and objects to be controlled by men.
F. Scott Fitzgerald, having lived through the era of the “New Women” in the 1920’s, uses two female protagonists in both his novel Great Gatsby (e.g. Daisy Buchanan) and his short story “Bernice Bobs Her Hair” (e.g. Marjorie Harvey). As such, he personifies his desired theme to define the female presence shaped by shifts in society during the 1920’s. He uses an apathetic and cynical tone that paints each character in a negative light. In other words, American women were known as having unequal rights as compared to men; they were often entrapped in oppressive marriages and seen as the inferior sex. Women are portrayed as inferior to men through Fitzgerald’s writings of both the Great Gatsby and “Bernice Bobs Her Hair.”
For the first time ever in America, during the 1920s, a shift in the gender norms occurred. The decade was marked by the breakdown of the traditions governing women by the ratification of the 19th amendment, causing the idea of the new woman to become widespread. Also, during this time, a fantastic novel, The Great Gatsby, recognizes the rapidly changing social dynamic. F. Scott Fitzgerald both criticizes and praises the struggle between the coexisting traditional and new woman image by the flawed and interesting female characters, and the relationships with others they have. By exposing a variety of taboo at the time, Fitzgerald accurately captures the disturbance of the traditional expectations of women. During this turbulent time, the novel demonstrates the issues circulating the American public has surrounding the shift in gender because The Great Gatsby deals with the consequences of female emancipation in a misogynistic society.
The Great Gatsby is often referred to as the great American novel; a timeless commentary on the American Dream. A dream that defines success, power, love, social status, and recreation for the American public. It should be mentioned that this novel was published in 1925, which is a time when the American public had recently experienced some significant changes, including women’s suffrage, which had only taken place 6 years prior to the publication of this novel May of 1919. The women of this era had recently acquired a voice in politics, however, the social world does not always take the same pace as the political world. F. Scott Fitzgerald developed female characters that represented both women in their typical gender roles and their modern counterparts. I will be analyzing gender roles within the context of this novel, comparing and contrasting Myrtle Wilson, Jordan Baker, and Daisy Buchanan alongside one another, as well as comparing and contrasting their interactions with the men in the novel.
In the novel, The Great Gatsby, the two central women presented are Daisy Buchanan and Myrtle Wilson. These two women, although different, have similar personalities. Throughout the novel, there are instances in which the reader feels bad for and dislikes both Daisy and Myrtle. These two women portray that wealth is better than everything else, and they both base their lives on it. Also the novel shows the hardships and difficulties they have in their marriages. They are never satisfied with what they have, and are always longing for more.
“Being a woman is a terribly difficult task, since it consists principally in dealing with men” (Joseph Conrad). In the Novel, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the wife of George Wilson, Myrtle, has been cheating with the married man Tom Buchanan. From time to time they escape to an apartment Tom owns, behind each of their spouses backs. As time goes on Daisy, Tom’s wife, obtains the knowledge from Jordan that her previous lover is just across the bay and waiting to see her again. Daisy begins going behind Tom’s back with Jay Gatsby, tangling the characters in a mess of relationships. Throughout the book, women take important roles and change the story, even ultimately leading to Gatsby’s death.
During the 1920’s, the role women had under men was making a drastic change, and it is shown in The Great Gatsby by two of the main female characters: Daisy and Jordan. One was domesticated and immobile while the other was not. Both of them portray different and important characteristics of the normal woman growing up in the 1920’s. The image of the woman was changing along with morals. Females began to challenge the government and the society. Things like this upset people, especially the men. The men were upset because this showed that they were losing their long-term dominance over the female society.
In the novel The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald is criticizing American society of the 1920s. He uses the characters to demonstrate the power than men had over women during these times, as well as their mindless, self-indulgent actions, where consequence was only an afterthought. The attitude towards and the role of women is shown throughout the novel. Fitzgerald also shows how many people in America during this time were delusional and had meaningless existences.
Fitzgerald and Steinbeck’s views conflict on the value and portrayal of women. A woman in this century rarely challenges a man’s superiority, nor thinks or acts independently. Two mothers, Daisy Buchanan from The Great Gatsby and Ma Joad from The Grapes of Wrath, both follow this unspoken rule yet the authors portray their roles in very different ways. Daisy seems to be skimming the surface of her family life instead of actually interacting with her family. One of the few instances in which Fitzgerald mentions Daisy’s daughter, Daisy wishes for her daughter to be, “the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool” (Fitzgerald, 1925). Men want nothing to do with women who posses the ability and intelligence to voice their own opinions and react to the inequality at that time, so in Daisy’s opinion, her daughter should just hope to be beautiful. Contrary to a woman’s job at this time, Fitzgerald never depicts her as a typical housewife: cleaning, cooking, and taking care of the children. Daisy is subject to a cheating husband, displaying a lack of respect for her...
When the leading female in the role, Daisy Buchanan, learns that the child she is giving birth to is a girl she says “I’m glad it’s a girl. And I hope she’ll be a fool . . . the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool” (Fitzgerald 21). This shows how Daisy has given up at this point in her life and realizes that women will never amount to anything and that they have no role in society other than becoming someone's wife and or mother. Daisy Buchanan is fully aware of the role that women play during this time. She, unlike most women, knows of her own marginalization and admits that females are powerless and unimportant as they are living in a male-dominated society. The author's presentation of women is essentially very unsympathetic and unflattering. Daisy is also a character who is struggling with being in love with a man other than her husband, but knows that she cannot go out and have an affair. A literary critic Lihua Zhang states how The Great Gatsby is a, “Disillusion of American Dream . . . the way of dealing with true love and lo...
A woman’s need to pursue society’s expectations of her can corrupt her entire view on relationships and human interactions. In the novel The Great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald, suggests that an individuals desire to achieve a standard of perfection in society can demoralize them into engrossing only what is best for themselves during conflict. Daisy is the epitome of a woman during the 1920’s, she wants nothing more than the appearance of a perfect family life, so when her future is indefinite she hides behind Tom’s wealth, and certainty to achieve her desires.
What’s Fitzgerald’s implicit views of modern women in this novel? Daisy and Jordan dress the part of flappers, yet Daisy also plays the role of the Louisville rich girl debutante. A good question to ask is perhaps just how much Daisy realizes this is a “role,” and whether her recognition of that would in any sense make her a modern woman character.
Daisy and Jordan are members of the elite class and are often presented as motionless, sitting or lying down, and when they do move it is leisurely. On the other hand, Myrtle is a member of the lower class and is depicted as annoyingly full of energy. During their journey to Tom and Daisy’s apartment, Daisy rapidly states “I’m going to make a list of all the things I’ve got to get. A massage and a wave and a collar for the dog and one of those cute little ashtrays where you touch a spring, and a wreath with a black silk bow for mother’s grave that’ll last all summer” (Fitzgerald, page 40). Myrtle’s abundance of energy is induced by her obsession with obtaining wealth. Despite drastic differences in how females are depicted based on their differences in wealth, both Daisy and Myrtle are treated as inferior to their husbands. This patriarchal view influences a feminist