The Golden Girl: F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby

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F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby introduces the roaring twenties with a series of golden prosperity and riches beyond belief. With his eccentric chraracters, Daisy Buchanan, Tom Buchanan, and Jay Gatsby, Fitzgerald shapes the perception of 1920’s New York and shows the unique social aspect of life in the east. The Buchanans are initially portrayed as the power couple. Both desirable in their own way, Tom is INSERT QUOTE OF WHAT HE’S LIKE CAUSE IDK HE’S AN ASSHOLE and Daisy is utterly beautiful and enchanting. The Buchanans, unfortunately, are more broken than they seem. With the arrival of Jay Gatsby into the story, conflict ignites as Gastby and Tom attempt to win over the beloved golden girl, Daisy Buchanan. all Through the characterization of Daisy Buchanan and her individual relationships with Tom Buchanan and Jay Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald illuminates the conflicting gender roles in society and thus highlights the ideals of feminism.
Fitzgerald introduces Daisy Buchanan as the “golden girl” in the novel. She is magnetic and alluring to the men around her—her beauty truly reinforces her status and reputation of wealth (Fitzgerald). Her name, “Daisy”, compares her to that of a flower with “a gold center and white petals”, thus portraying her radiant beauty and presenting her as the “princess dressed in white” (Weshoven). The symbolic meaning behind her name shows that she is valued for her beauty. To further enhance the physical appearance of Daisy, Fitzgerald associates her with “the color white, which is the color she always wears” in order to imply that she is someone “insubstantial” and “ethereal.” ("Overview: The Great Gatsby.") Fitzgerald uses this representation to portray the unequal standards of men and women...

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...tely, Fitzgerald was able to convey that women were objects to be won over.
The inequality between the genders portrays men as being more powerful than women, and thus demeanors the females in the novel. Fitzgerald Fitzgerald highlights the ideals of feminism by showing how unfairly women are treated and portrayed in the novel.

Works Cited

Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: Scribner, 2004. Print.
"Overview: The Great Gatsby." Characters in Young Adult Literature. John T Gillespie and Corinne J. Naden. Detroit: Gale, 1997. Literature Resource Center. Web. 10 May 2014.
Wershoven, Carol. "Insatiable Girls." Child Brides and Intruders. Bowling Green: Bowling
Green State University Popular Press, 1993. 92-99. Rpt. in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Ed. Linda Pavlovski. Vol. 157. Detroit: Gale, 2005. Literature Resource Center. Web. 2 May 2014.

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