Essay On Sexism In The Great Gatsby

Women, in general, are inferior to men and simply serve as distractions for the more dominant gender. At least, that is what Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald seemed to paint a picture of in “Cross Country Snow” and The Great Gatsby. Both Hemingway and Fitzgerald have been extremely influential writers and are a huge part of American literary history. However, they both lived in times of the past when men and women were not treated the same, and that reflects in their stories. Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald both display sexism and gender prejudice in “Cross Country Snow” and The Great Gatsby, respectively.

Ernest Hemingway portrays men as superior to women in “Cross Country Snow”. In the story, Nick is sexist for assuming the waitress is touchy because she has no ring but

Scott Fitzgerald portrays men as superior in The Great Gatsby. Throughout the course of the entire novel, “woman” is a term used to describe only the lower class females. For example, the Finnish maid and Myrtle, two lower class females, are referred to by “woman”, whereas the higher class females like Daisy and the ones at Gatsby’s parties are referred to as “girls”. This shows sexism because the more childish word to describe females is used for the higher class females, the better ones. This shows that at their best, women are really just “girls” who never grew up. Calling an adult female a girl like that is very condescending and shows sexism in the story. In the text of the novel, Fitzgerald also displays sexism by illustrating women as just distractions for men. They have no purpose other than to subvert and disturb men. This is the case throughout the entire book. For example, Daisy is seen as there only to distract Jay Gatsby from his destiny of being great. This very obviously shows sexism in the book as it implies that women, as opposed to men, have no real purpose in life and the only thing they do is negatively affect the one other gender that can achieve