Throughout history, women have had to overcome many setbacks. They have gone through a lot of mistreatment in the process of changing the idea of how a woman should dress, act, and participate in activities outside of the home. The role of women changed drastically in the 1920s. This change presented women with new freedoms in the workforce, at home, and in fashion. Women who took advantage of the new opportunities and independence in the 1920s are known as flappers. The flapper lifestyle is seen most clearly through Jordan Baker, a professional golfer and friend of Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsby. Through his characterization of Daisy Buchanan and Jordan Baker, F. Scott Fitzgerald highlights the changing role of women during the 1920s in The Great Gatsby.
The 1920s allowed women to have a lot of new freedom, but women were still presented with setbacks that kept them from fully experiencing it. The Clash of Cultures in the 1910s and 1920s website explains how women were more restricted in how they dressed before the 1920s. It describes how women were forced to wear corsets and frilly clothes that were more conservative. This conservative way of dress changed during the 1920s with the flappers (“Image and Lifestyle”). The website goes on to explain that even though women had many new opportunities during the time period, they were still not given important roles at work. “Although the labor movement thrived in the early twentieth century, by 1920 a small fraction of women in the workforce had union jobs, and rarely did the movement take up issues of concern to working women or allow them leadership roles” (“Work, Education, and Reform”). The Clash of Cultures website also explains that there was some opposition to the new free...
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...the growing independence for women in how they dress, where they work, and how they act. This will continue to grow, producing the modern lifestyle of women in the United States.
Works Cited
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: Collier Books, 1991. Print.
“Flappers.” US History: Pre-Colombian to the New Millennium. Independence Hall Association, n.d. Web. 25 Feb. 2014.
Hilliardem. "Flappers and Old Sports." The Great American Novel: 1900-1965. WordPress, 18 Sept. 2012. Web. 26 Feb. 2014.
“Image and Lifestyle.” Clash of Cultures in the 1910s and 1920s. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Feb. 2014.
“Work, Education, and Reform.” Clash of Cultures in the 1910s and 1920s. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Feb. 2014.
Wyly, Michael J. Nick Carraway’s Price: The Loss of Innocence. Understanding the Great Gatsby: Understanding Great Literature. San Diego: Lucent Books Inc, 2002. Print.
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Show MoreIn 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.
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.
Scott Fitzgerald, in his critically acclaimed The Great Gatsby, examined the role of women in society and the transgressions of the New Women against a patriarchal society. Additionally, Herstory and Daisy Buchanan by Leland S. Person Jr., Bad Driving: Jordan 's Tantalizing Story in "The Great Gatsby" by Veronica Makowsky, and Critical Theory Today by Lois Tyson critique Fitzgerald’s novel through a feminist lens. In The Great Gatsby, Daisy, Jordan and Myrtle represent the three archetypes of women, and their fates and characterizations demonstrate the sexist, patriarchal message of the novel. As the most traditional woman of the novel, Fitzgerald not only depicts Daisy Buchanan as the simple trophy wife of her husband, but also chastises her for rebellious refusal to accept her position in life. Modeled after the historical Gibson Girl, Jordan Baker defies all gender stereotypes and is therefore unfavorably portrayed as androgynous and
Sports reached a new height in the fabulous fifties, both professionally and recreationally. More time to relax and a new wealth among society brought more participation to family athletics. Furthermore, households began to purchase televisions, which allowed enthusiasts to truly follow their favorite team or athlete (Bradley 1). Desegregation was the biggest c...
The 1920’s was a period of extremely economic growth and personal wealth. America was a striving nation and the American people had the potential to access products never manufactured before. Automobile were being made on an assembly line and were priced so that not just the rich had access to these vehicles, as well as, payment plans were made which gave the American people to purchase over time if they couldn't pay it all up front. Women during the First World War went to work in place of the men who went off to fight. When the men return the women did not give up their positions in the work force. Women being giving the responsibility outside the home gave them a more independent mindset, including the change of women's wardrobe, mainly in the shortening of their skirts.
Lindop, Edmund, and Margaret J. Goldstein. America In The 1920s. Minneapolis: Lerner Publishing Group Inc., 2010. Print.
“I hope she’ll be a fool - that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool” (Fitzgerald 20). This quote is as true now as it was when Daisy Buchanan said it about her daughter in The Great Gatsby. Women grow up in a box of expectations. They are told to act a certain way and do certain things. Daisy knew that this was the world that her daughter was going to be growing up in, and that if she grew up to be a fool then she would fit into the world very nicely. If she grew up and became someone who noticed inequality, or who wanted independence, she would struggle in the world. While woman are no longer put in such a black and white box, there are still many expectations and limitations that woman have to face in their
Traxel, David. 1898: The Birth of the American Century. New York: A.A. Knopf, 1998. Print.
1900-1930," Journal of American History; June 1996, Vol. 83 Issue 1 Web. 26 May 2015.
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.
From the start of the book we can see that women in the book are
Carlisle, Rodney P. Handbook To Life In America. Volume VI, The Roaring Twenties, 1920 To 1929. Facts on File, 2009. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 30 May 2012
“Women’s roles were constantly changing and have not stopped still to this day.” In the early 1900s many people expected women to be stay at home moms and let the husbands support them. But this all changes in the 1920s, women got the right to vote and began working from the result of work they have done in the war. Altogether in the 1920s women's roles have changed drastically.
Amidst the exceedingly prosperous decade of the 1920’s, traditional American lifestyles and principles were interjected by the new superficial and materialistic beliefs closely associated with “The Roaring Twenties.” Undoubtedly, the 1920’s were a decade of change.
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.