Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby satires 1920’s America as a time of fame, glamour and excitement. It is a time in which women greatly influence the culture. While Fitzgerald uses women as vital characters in his novel to symbolize the beauty, status and personality behind the ideology of the American Dream, there is still a widespread idea is that a woman’s role is not to overlap a man’s role. Men primarily dominate women. Women are commonly evolving into the new mode of flappers who sport knee highs and loose fitting clothing. Their behaviour and attitude contribute to the carelessness of the era and the drive for the American Dream. The characters Daisy Buchanan and Myrtle Wilson exemplify the plight of women in 1920’s America in The Great
Women in this era are deemed as “their celebrity and the fact that their public manners and physical appearance so perfectly matched the fascinating, wanton images projected in Scott’s piece. They didn’t make the twenties, they were the twenties” (Moore 71). Zelda, Fitzgerald’s wife, had a great impact on the culture of the 1920s as a prominent women in society. He projected the character of Zelda onto Daisy as a role model of what a women should be like in that society. Fitzgerald uses flowers are an ascetical representation of temporary beauty, which is particularly stressed in the names of Daisy and Myrtle. A daisy, which is a delicate flower represents beauty and purity. To Jay Gatsby, the name is suitable. However, this beauty and purity represented by the petals is short-lived, as in her center is yellow, which represents her greed, poor values and corruption of morals. The core represents her willingness to lie and deceive for the sake of social class. Fitzgerald only uses the term “women” when referring to females of the lower class, but refers to wealthy females, like Daisy, as “girls.” As the flower dies, in represents how her love of Gatsby did just as quickly. Her name represents the consumerism of the era and the belief that one is better regarding how much they own, the empty values. Myrtle is a flowering shrub, with white blooms but dark berries, as she appears to be beautiful but has elements of darkness. The dark berries foreshadow the blood of her upcoming murder. Myrtle is described as a “rougher” plant than a daisy, describing how Myrtle is lower class than Daisy, but she acts above her actual social standing, through behaviour such as “Myrtle raised her eyebrows in despair at the shiftlessness of lower orders” (69). A myrtle flower is immortal and Myrtle stresses this and foreshadows her upcoming murder through statements such as, "All
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
Fitzgerald, like Jay Gatsby, while enlisted in the army, fell in love with a girl who was enthralled by his newfound wealth. After he was discharged, he devoted himself to a lifestyle of parties and lies in an attempt to win the girl of his dreams back. Daisy, portrayed as Fitzgerald’s dream girl, did not wait for Jay Gatsby; she was consumed by the wealth the Roaring Twenties Era brought at the end of the war. In the novel, The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald presents the themes of wealth, love, memory/past, and lies/deceit through the characters Gatsby, Daisy, and Tom.
“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
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.
F Scott Fitgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, is centred upon 1920’s America. In the text, characters such as Myrtle Wilson, Jordan Baker and Daisy Buchanan are all carefully constructed to reveal various attitudes held by America in the early 20th century. Overall, the construction of female characters in The Great Gatsby showcases an accurate representation of women in the time period the text was composed in.
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.
From the start of the book we can see that women in the book are
He writes, through the voice of Gatsby, that “her voice is full of money” (127), implying that Daisy speaks with an eloquence and elegance found only in the voice of those born wealthy. Gatsby inherently connects Daisy with the idea of wealth and money, and shows a desire to be seen as one born with money. Hence, the reader can conclude that Gatsby is in love with what Daisy represents: wealth and the high class. By associating Daisy with the high society, Fitzgerald indirectly reveals his attitude towards America of the 1920s. He implies that similar to how Daisy chooses material pleasure and societal benefit as opposed to a real feeling that brings true joy, the people of the 1920s prioritize wealth and fleeting pleasure over concrete feelings that bring true happiness. He even takes his commentary a step further, as the “true” feeling represented in The Great Gatsby is love. Ironically, the love depicted in this society is corrupt and fake. Thus, Fitzgerald states that the ideologies and values of the American 1920s will result in its downfall, just as the corrupt and fake love between Gatsby and Daisy results in the downfall of Gatsby. Furthermore, through his portrayal of Daisy’s inadvertent cruelty towards both Myrtle and Gatsby, Fitzgerald parallels the unconscious depravity of the high society and its negative impact on America. This is seen
Women are seen from a biased point of view in pop culture as they are often criticized and portrayed in degrading ways. The Great Gatsby takes place in the early part of the 20th century which is also known as the Roaring 20's. In regards to feminism, the women in The Great Gatsby are mainly depicted as second class to men. The story gives readers an insight of the roles that gender played in past World War I America. In The Great Gatsby, the author Scott Fitzgerald shines a light on the submissiveness of females toward males during the Roaring Twenties by giving the women in the novel an unfair representation as they are often identified as passive or negative “objects”.
Tom Buchanan and George Wilson have plenty in common with their attitude pertaining towards women in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald throughout the entire novel gives the audience an insight on his thoughts about the nature of man. Fitzgerald portrays men often treating women harshly throughout his novel. For example, there are many violent acts towards women, a constant presence of dominance, and also ironically Tom and Georges over reactions to being cheated on.