Disillusion Of Women In The Great Gatsby

Modernist authors of the 1920s showed a negative light on the women of this generation. There were a lot of people who experienced disillusionment of the American Dream which included the ‘perfect’ family. In “Portrait D’une Femme”, by Ezra Pound, it shows the view of a woman from a man who clearly had a disillusionment of his idea of women of a perfect life. In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the narrator also has a disillusionment of women of the 1920’s. In this piece, it shows the differences and similarities of the social classes; this showed how women act based on their social status in society. Both of these pieces reflect the fast and abrupt changes of women of the 1920’s. The Great Gatsby and “Portrait D’une Femme” both reflect

Both of the women are presented as women of no morals who only have a love of money and possessions. Both of these women are introduced as the women in white, this color being purity. We evenly see these women the least bit pure and this represents one of the first main examples of inverted symbolism. Evaluating these women one by one, when we look at Daisy we see the ‘trophy wife’. She is the women that every man wanted and every woman wanted to be. As Carol Wershoven puts it, “She is the golden girl in the white palace” (Wershoven). As we get to know Daisy she kind of comes off as the ‘clueless blonde’. She is always seen contemplating what she is doing and what she should be doing in life; almost as if it’s a game and she is still looking for a set of rules to guide her. She herself views girls as fools and mentions this when she talks about her daughter, “I m glad it’s a girl. And I hope she’ll be a fool- that’s

While her, Tom, and Nick are in the car she spontaneously decides she wants Tom to buy her a “police dog”, so he buys her what the sales person calls a police dog without questioning her (Fitzgerald 27). Hence, this shows Myrtles craving for the materialistic things that come with money. On the other hand, at her party, she talks about how marrying her husband was a mistake, and leaves you to believe it is because of his lack of money. “I knew right away I had made a mistake. He borrowed somebody’s best suit to get married in” (Fitzgerald 35). Here we see has little she thinks of George, her husband, and she almost shows a sense of disgust for him. She is clearly “bored of her husband” (Wershoven). In the novel, she does mention how she did once love George, but the love is long gone. Consequently, she sleeps with Tom, and he buys her anything she wants. This gives her the role as the woman who “sells herself” (Weshoven). Myrtle also gets the title of having the ultimate betrayal which represents the difference of high class and low class women (Wershoven). Of all the adultery displayed in the novel, Myrtle is the only one who didn’t have a partner having an affair as well. George was true to Myrtle, which gave her infidelity, a more shunned look; epically when her