In the Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald he has three major female characters that play a key role into his book. It takes place in Long Islands, New York in the summer after World War
1. Fitzgerald represented the women in a negative, stereotypical way during the era of the
1920’s. The women in this novel from Daisy Buchanan, the femme fatale, to Jordan Baker the corrupt ingénue are all terrible people. They feed off the pain and suffering around them and are very dishonest. Nick states that they are all careless, uncaring people, and they destroy people and things. Daisy Buchanan is the dream of Jay Gatsby and leads him to believe he might have a chance to win her back. She first falls in love with the young lieutenant in Louisville
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She later makes a promise that she would wait for Gatsby until he comes back from the war which she will later not fulfills. Despite Daisy living a life of glamour and great wealth, she does not seemed satisfied and is frustrated by her husband Tom. In
Chapter.7 she goes onto explain the confused state she is in at the moment. She tells Gatsby that he wants too much, “I love you now-isn’t that enough? I can’t help what’s past.” (pg.132,
Chp.5). She is telling Gatsby to be happy with what he is receiving now from her. “I did love him once-but I loved you two” (pg. 132, Chp.5)although she was happier with Gatsby then with Tom she is not willing to drop her social class and wealth for a Nouveau riche. On the ride back home
Gatsby decides to let daisy drive and ends up being a huge disaster. Not only does she kill
Myrtle the woman Tom is having an affair with but, decides to let Gatsby take the blame. to add insult to injury after the death of Gatsby the Buchanan’s have moved with no forwarding address and she doesn’t show up to the funeral. This goes on to show how careless and self-centered Daisy is with not only getting Gatsby killed but not
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Nick describes her as annoying and admits that at the apartment party he got drunk for the second time since he couldn’t stand them. “I thought he knew something about breeding, but he wasn’t fit to lick my shoe.” (Pg.34, Chp.2). George is a hardworking man but does not have the money nor class to keep Myrtle happy. “I knew right away I had made a mistake. He borrowed somebody’s best suit to get married in and never even told me about it, and the man came after it one day when he was out.” (Pg.35, Chp.2) Myrtle gives off the vibe that she is not willing to stay with someone just for love. She is in it to either gain wealth from it or go up in the social class. It is obvious that George truly loves Myrtle and even tries to move
West with her but that isn’t enough to stop her from seeing a rich man like Tom. This makes her terrible since Tom uses her to pleasure himself and does not want anything serious while
George is madly in love with her and she is still willing to pick Tom over George. Jordan Baker is a friend of the Buchanan’s and also ends up falling in love with Nick. At the get go we find out that she is a competitive golfer and knows about the affair Tom
In the beginning of the novel she tells nick that she has done everything and seen it all, showing how her money and wealth have allowed her to do whatever she pleased. While Myrtle lives in automotive repair station with her husband. Myrtle doesn't have the money or the status that Daisy has. Myrtle is unhappy because she is poor and wants a life where she can be rich and glamorous. She wants the materialistic things in life.
At a cursory glance, Daisy may seem like the quintessential socialite, with a happy marriage and a life of luxury. With her wealthy lifestyle, Daisy has the independence to travel anywhere and whenever she wants, oftentimes without Tom, as seen when Nick invited her to “come for tea … and don't bring Tom” [88]. This small act of independent is offset by Tom’s eventual “perturbation at Daisy’s running around alone”[110]. In this scene, Tom’s grasp on Daisy’s life is tightened once more as if she was an expensive piece of jewelry, with the miniscule possibility of being stolen. However, on the other hand, much of Daisy’s wealth does come from Tom, giving a great deal of control to him in their relationship to the point where Tom does not hide the fact he has a mistress. “You mean to say you don’t know? … I thought everybody knew”[19]. With the way Jordan says this, one can infer that even Daisy knew and she basically had no say in the matter. Furthermore, when Tom’s mistress continues to call during tea and Jordan whispers, “The rumor is that that’s Tom’s girl on the telephone”, it shows the amount of control that Tom has over Daisy and Myrtle [122]. This part also shows the impact of societal norms, which had made it seem acceptable for Tom to have a mistress while if Daisy was having an affair it would be more looked down upon.
Myrtle eventually had similar goals as Gatsby, but her life did not begin the same way. She was of the lower class of society and married a simple man. The two pursued a poor life, but Myrtle’s husband George was a decent man. Nevertheless, Myrtle became unsatisfied, and when the opportunity arose to better the quality of her life, she took it. Daisy’s husband Tom, an unfaithful, rough man not very committed to his marriage, began an affair with Myrtle.
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...
Tom was the answer to all her problems. He was rich, and he loved her, even if that meant they were both cheating. The airedale—undoubtedly there was an airedale concerned in it somewhere, though its feet were startlingly white—changed hands and settled down into Mrs. Wilson’s lap, where she fondled the weather-proof coat with rapture” (Fitzgerald 31). Buying their own dog is just another way to further their relationship, making them feel more like a couple. Would Myrtle really want to have that dog with Wilson?
But because of his obsession with the past, he can never accept the present as it is, resulting in his failed Dream and his inability to reach happiness. Originating from a poor midwestern family, Jay Gatsby joins the army as a boy in an attempt to achieve honor and glory in the only way he feels he can. When at his training camp in the South, he meets and falls in love with Daisy Buchanan, a gorgeous debutante in whom “Gatsby’s meretricious dream was made flesh” (Trask 214). When Gatsby’s deployment note finally comes, he is reluctant to leave Daisy and the relationship he has begun with her, but his desire to fulfill his Dream with Daisy comes with the requirement that he become the wealthy young man he has portrayed himself to be. He departs with the fervent hope that Daisy will wait for him while he becomes “rich and gentlemanly… so he will be worthy to ask Daisy to… marry him” and maintains complete belief in the attainability of his Dream (Mizener 81). Unfortunately for Gatsby, Daisy falls victim to the pressures of her surroundings, caving to the demands of her parents and society that she marry Tom Buchanan, an enormously wealthy and powerful man from East Egg. From then on, Daisy is placed outside of Gatsby’s grasp, ruining the attainability of his Dream. They reunite five years later, Gatsby
realizes that Daisy if having an affair with Gatsby he becomes enraged and comes back to
reveals the struggle daisy must encounter of being a married woman who longs for another man.
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.
Tom realizes her desperate situation and takes total advantage of her. The clearest example of this is when Myrtle shouts Daisy’s name and Tom warns her not to say it again but Myrtle says Daisy's name anyway. Tom Buchanan in a “A short deft movement..., breaks her nose with his open hand.” Tom views her as not even being allowed to lick the dirt of his shoe. She is just another one of Tom’s possessions. Myrtle isn’t even allowed to say Daisy's name. He knows that she's in desperate situation. Tom is all she has and he knows this, he could do whatever he wants. He realizes that without her she will have to go back to George’s measly garage and she doesn't want that. Therefore Tom takes control of her desperation. Additionally, at the party, Catherine tells Nick that neither of them can stand the person they’re married to. They don't divorce and marry one another because Daisy is a Catholic. Nick knows that Tom is lying indicating to the reader, yet again, that Tom uses Myrtle for his own pleasure. She is nothing to him and he could do this because of Myrtle’s desperation. Another example in the novel is Mr. McKee asks Tom for a reference to be able to work in West Egg and Tom replies “Ask Myrtle,” said Tom, breaking into a short shout of laughter as Mrs. Wilson entered with a tray. “She’ll give you a letter of introduction, won’t you Myrtle?” She answers in confusion “Do what?” Tom is mocking her in front of
All the while, Gatsby stands outside Daisy’s house to ensure her safety. He unknowingly waits as Daisy makes amends with her husband. She had no intention on running away with Gatsby anymore, because she knew Tom would always give her anything she wanted. Daisy had sunk her claws so deep into Gatsby that he never suspected that she would stay with her husband. For Gatsby, what Daisy and he shared was everything to him. For Daisy, it no longer meant anything. “So I walked away and left him standing there in the moonlight—watching over nothing.” (Fitzgerald
treats her like garbage, after Gatsby admits that he is "new money." She wants to keep her
Tom and Daisy have a toxic relationship, but neither one of them do anything to make it better. Tom cheats on Daisy throughout the story, even though they are married. They have a kid together, but that doesn't seem to stop Tom. He likes the idea of having a beautiful
...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.
While driving back home from a party in the city, Daisy and Gatsby hit and kill Myrtle Wilson, Tom’s lover. Nick finds Gatsby hiding in the bushes outside of Daisy’s home, and Gatsby reveals that Daisy had been driving when Myrtle was struck down. Despite this revelation, Myrtle’s husband, George, is told that the accident was Gatsby’s fault. George, who had already believed that Gatsby was his wife’s lover, shoots and kills Gatsby as he is floating in his pool, then proceeds ...