The Great Gatsby Women Analysis

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She was the first 'nice girl' he had ever seen. (Chapter 8). Discuss the way in which women are represented in The Great Gatsby. To what extent are ideas about the American Dream influenced by (heteronormative) ideas of 'romance' in the novel? Within all of Fizgerald's fiction women are represented as a decorative frame of naivety and beauty, the women characters are treated subordinate and not represented as being equal to the male sex. F.Scott Fitzgerald wrote the novel The Great Gatsby on April 10, 1925. Set in down town New York City, it alters between here and Long Island with the majority of the characters living in fabricated West Egg in the summer of 1922. Revolving around mystery and passion, the story unfolds revealing the alluring secret relationship between Daisy and Gatsby. Women are conveyed as being very materialistic and in love with wealth and fortune, Sarah Churchwell depicts The Great Gatsby as a "cautionary tale of the decadent downside of the American dream." 1 Decadence is shown within the complete novel as Fitzgerald portrays the lack of moral values, as the novel shows America consisting of jazz music and excessive lavish parties resulting in the fraud of the American Dream; It could be portrayed that the rich were completely materialistic, revolving their lives around social status and selfish behaviour. Edwin Clark, who wrote the first New York Times commented on the characters who lived at East Egg as “meanness of spirit, a carelessness and absence of loyalties…dumb in their insensate selfishness, and only to be pitied.”2 This tumbling decay resembles Fitzpatrick's interpretation of what America was truly like in the 1920's suggesting the difference in class and fortune, as West Egg is conveyed as... ... middle of paper ... ...to his home to witness his success. Gatsby turned his life around from being the son of “shiftless and unsuccessful farm people” (104; ch. 6) to owning a mansion in Long Island “He has lived not for himself, but for his dream, for his vision of the good life inspired by the beauty of a lovely rich girl” (Fahey 71) 6 He is never alone, but Gatsby doesn't have any true friends. From a Marxist perspective, Tom is constantly bragging about his wealth to others, this conveys his low self esteem and the need to show off and impress, a characteristic him and Daisy both share between them. As he is the wealthiest man within the novel it could be suggested him and Daisy are married in an exchange of her beauty and his wealth done only to fit in with the social status. Similar to Tom and Myrtle's affair which consists of Tom spending money for her to live her American Dream.

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