Comparing Women's Reputation In The Great Gatsby And Cather

Throughout the last century women have come along way. In 2017 women can achieve and be anything they aspire to. It wasn’t always like this. In the late 1800's and into the early 1900's a woman's reputation defined who they were and how successful they could become. In The Great Gatsby and My Antonia, authors Fitgerald and Cather respectively, show how the choices that women made affected their reputation.

In the early 20th century the choices American women made affected the career path they could pursue. In the story My Antonia, the author Willa Cather goes in depth about the hardships of a minor yet crucial character named Lena. The story Cather states, "I thought you were going to be married, Lena. Didn’t I hear that Nick Svendsen was

rushing you pretty hard? He did go with me quite a while. But his father made a fuss about it and said he wouldn’t give Nick any land if he married me so he's going to marry Annie Iverson...I don’t want to marry Nick, or any other man. I've seen a good deal of married life and I don't care for it." (Cather, 80) This shows that if Nick were to marry Lena then his disapproving father would not grant him land and proving that a girl with a reputation like Lena could not find a reputable husband. In this time period women did not have many options for jobs. They could be a lowly servant worker like Lena but that would mean their reputation would be destroyed and nobody in upper society would want to marry them. In My Antonia Cather states, "...he would not let his daughters go out into service. Unless his girls could teach a county school, they sat at home in poverty. The Bohemian and Scandinavian girls could not get positions as teachers, because they had had no opportunity to learn the language." (Cather, 97) This shows that American girls had only two options; either going into service work or becoming a teacher. A cultured man would never marry a woman who worked in the service industry so unless you were one of the few women who could become an educator, you became a housewife while your husband was out working. For the Bohemian and Scandinavian girls, they didn't have the opportunity to become educated because they weren't fluent in English. This meant that they were left to be servant workers and they're reputation was ruined. This is significant because the main character Antonia experiences hardships just like these as well. Cather vividly paints a picture in our heads about how hard life really was for women in that era.
Willa Cather not only wrote about the minor characters hardships, but she mainly focused on the main character Antonia and all the risky decisions she made.

In My Antonia Cather states, "Then I'll just leave, Mrs. Harling. Lena's been wanting me to get a place closer to her for a long while. Mary Svoboda's going away from the Cutter's to work at a hotel, and I could have her place...Antonia, if you go to the Cutters to work, you cannot come back to this house again. You know what that man is. It will be the ruin of you." (Cather, 101) This shows that Antonia wants to work for the Cutters' because she feels she doesn’t' have enough freedom at the Harlings. Antonia is a teenage girl and wants to be able go to town and go dancing and have relationships with boys. Mrs. Harling however, believes that Antonia moving to the Cutters will ruin her reputation indefinitely because of Mr. Cutters history of how poorly he treats women. In the story Cather states, "He was notoriously dissolute with women. Two Swedish girls who had lived in his house were the worse for the experience. One of them he had taken to Omaha and established in the business for which he had fitted her." (Cather, 102) This proves just how bad of a man Mr. Cutter was. If a woman came to work for him he would force them to become involved in prostitution. In the early 20th century, women who were involved in such a scandalous industry were never able to recover and have a normal life. Antonia wouldn't be able to get

a job or find a husband because nobody would have wanted to marry someone with a history like that. Proving that Mrs. Harling's fear of Antonia's reputation being ruined was reasonable because there was indeed a chance Antonia could end up like the Swedish girls and ruin her reputation causing her to never be able to have a normal job or husband.
Similar to My Antonia, the story The Great Gatsby also shows how the decisions women make affect their reputation and life.

In the story The Great Gatsby, one of the main characters Daisy is married to Tom. Tom however is very unfaithful to Daisy and already had a mistress named Myrtle. One night at dinner Tom received a call from Myrtle. In The Great Gatsby Fitzgerald states, "The butler came back and murmured something close to Tom's ear, whereupon Tom frowned, pushed his chair back and without a word went inside. As if his absence quickened something within her, Daisy leaned forward again, her voice glowing and singing." (Fitzgerald, 14) This shows that after Tom left to talk to Myrtle, Daisy chose to pretend like nothing was wrong. In the book it was obvious Daisy was fully aware of the situation. As a reader, you may be frustrated with this choice because she easily could've confronted him about it and possibly got away from an unhealthy relationship. However, if she were to leave him, she would become poor since Tom was the one who provided for the family. Not only would Daisy become destitute, but she would also lose her friends since they were very judgmental and only hung out with her because of Tom's power. All her so-called friends would judge her for divorcing Tom and leave her in an instant. As awful as this sounds, this was the harsh reality and consequence for Daisy throughout the story. One of the minor characters Jordan was involved in a golf scandal that

could've cost her career. In the story Fitzgerald states, "At first I was flattered to go everywhere with her, because she was a golf champion, and everyone knew her name...At her first big golf tournament there was a row that nearly reached the newspapers- a suggestion that she had moved her ball from a bad lie in the semi-final round." (Fitzgerald, 57) This shows that women could easily get a bad reputation even with the slightest scandal. If the story would've been released, Jordan's golfing career could have possibly been terminated. As you can see, just like in My Antonia, The Great Gatsby also shows how one wrong choice could ruin a woman's reputation indefinitely.
In conclusion, My Antonia and The Great Gatsby are both stories that can transport a reader back to an era where the story took place and give us an accurate representation of what life was like for women in the early 20th century. Cather and Fitzgerald both prove to the reader, in a telling way, that choices women made could reflect how society perceives them. It makes me think about my own choices and how I could be perceived so quickly by others.