Money and Degraded Femininity The Great Gatsby written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is interpreted with fresh eyes and new understanding throughout the years. It’s important to analyze the factors of this book that captures the reader’s attention and make it applicable to many types of criticism. A distinct aspect of The Great Gatsby was the outlook on feminism. By using feminist criticism to scrutinize this book, the ideal portrayal of women was expressed as shallow, deceitful, and mostly dependent. This was the socially accepted norm of women during the 1920’s. However, some of the women in this book tried to escape the socially accepted behavior in some way. The book showed degraded femininity through relationships, thoughts, behavior, and authority …show more content…
of men and women. The women in The Great Gatsby often rely on men to support themselves. The women are more concerned with wealth and power rather than true love. This was mainly exhibited through one of the main characters, Daisy. Daisy was seductive, careless, and concerned with wealth. Even though Daisy knew that her husband had a mistress, she decided to stay with him. Why did she do this? She knew that Tom was financially stable and capable of taking excellent care of her. Tom told her that he would “take better care of her” (Fitzgerald 140) than Gatsby. So, she decided to go back to Tom because of her dependence on money. Daisy also lets Tom speak for her. Tom exclaimed “she’s not leaving me”(138) to Gatsby. She didn’t have a part in this decision and let the two men fight over her. This was after she found out that Gatsby was made of false money. So, she again relied on money to support her and didn’t fight against Tom in this situation. Also, after she discovered Gatsby’s backstory to wealth, she was “drawing further and further into herself” (110). This showed that she was not as interested in love as she was concerned with money. Gatsby was a bootlegger. Tom was a rich man. This was all of the information Daisy needed to decide who she would stay with. She didn’t “need to strive for anything far off”(Wulick) because money was the key to being glorified. Anyone who was wealthy was considered great by many. An important aspect of Daisy to observe was the fact that she believed women should fit into social conformity. When she found out her child was a girl, she said “I hope she’ll be a fool, that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool”(Fitzgerald 16). Daisy wanted her to daughter to be foolish. Foolish people are taken control of easily. So, Daisy knew that she was under her husband’s control, yet she saw it as the socially acceptable way to be happy. Another woman in this book who strongly relies on a wealthy man was Myrtle. Myrtle struggles with the constraints of poverty. She desperately wants to leave her husband for Tom, especially after she found out her husband “borrowed somebody’s best suit to get married in”(35). Myrtle knew that Tom could provide her with anything she wanted. For example, Myrtle wanted a dog, and Tom agreed to get her one. She looked right through her husband and “smiled at him as if he were a ghost”(30). He was no longer important. Both Daisy and Myrtle felt that they needed rich men to feel happiness and stability. The women in The Great Gatsby didn’t just rely on wealth.
They also relied on their deceitful behavior. Many times, they were dishonest to people in order to get what they wanted. The main idea of this book dealt with Daisy’s dishonesty towards Gatsby. She tricked him into believing that she would be with him, but Nick knew better than this. He observed Daisy’s eyes as they “fell on Jordan with a sort of appeal as though she has never, all along, intended doing anything at all” (170). There was no room for true love in her heart. Her heart was consumed by a desire for money. She didn’t intend on being with Gatsby after his real identity was exposed. She was not trustworthy or honest. Another instance where Daisy’s deceitfulness was revealed was when she tells Nick that he was “an absolute rose”(19). Nick knew she was lying. This tells the reader early on that Daisy can’t be trusted. Also, the white dress that Daisy often wears gave off a sense of deception. It made her seem pure, innocent, and perfect. However, she was not this way at all. Her main concern was her own well-being. The white dress also could have symbolized the “absence of all desires”(“The Great Gatsby”). The color white is often associated with blank spaces. So, Daisy had no desire to love those who were attracted to her unless they could support …show more content…
her. The appearance of women also seemed to be a minor part of The Great Gatsby. The descriptions and situations that involved Myrtle often revolved around her appearance. This could represent the appeal to a woman’s body for attractiveness rather than intellect. Nick described Myrtle as thickish and carrying her surplus flesh sensuously (Fitzgerald 29). This makes her body seem somewhat physically attractive. Also, when Myrtle died, her physical features were described. Myrtle’s left breast was swinging lose and her mouth was ripped”(146). It’s interesting how the main focus of Myrtle was her body. As said before, a woman’s physical features seemed to be the main appeal factor. Although the majority of women in this book were dependent on the idea that “money makes everything beautiful, even if it’s not” (“The Great Gatsby”), one particular woman resisted the social pressure of her time.
This woman was Jordan Baker. She was unlike the other female characters because she was fairly independent. She played gold, had an androgynous appearance, drove herself, and drank a lot. So, although most of the women needed men to be successful, Jordan did not. She was able to become financially stable from her career as a professional golfer. However, the fact that they described Jordan as a“slender, small-breasted girl”(Fitzgerald 17) gave her a masculine mien. This basically still is biased towards men being more successful than women because Jordan was described with the qualities of a man. Also, it seemed that Jordan wished to “push the boundaries of women’s role” (Wulick) farther but was unable to. This could be because she was a woman and had to stay within the societal expectations to maintain her title. Otherwise, people would have seen Jordan as an
outcast. The Great Gatsby greatly emphasizes the ideal place for a woman in society during the 1920’s. Women depended on money and their husbands, had mendacious attitudes, and occasionally resisted the social norm. Their impersonal eyes focused on wealth for contentment.
Set in the Roaring ‘20s, The Great Gatsby focuses mainly on the lives of men as Tom Buchanan and Jay Gatsby. However, it also clearly outlines the lives of several women : Daisy Buchanan, Myrtle Wilson, and Jordan Baker. On the surface, the lives of these women couldn’t be more different. Daisy, a rich debutante, is torn between her husband, Tom, or her first love, Jay Gatsby. Lower on the social ladder is Myrtle, who is having an affair with Tom, hoping to rise above her station in life. Jordan, on the other hand, is unmarried and a successful golfer, who travels the country participating in tournaments. While these women may have seemed independent, they’re still subject to the will of society which sees them as inferior and objects to be controlled by men.
The Great Gatsby is often referred to as the great American novel; a timeless commentary on the American Dream. A dream that defines success, power, love, social status, and recreation for the American public. It should be mentioned that this novel was published in 1925, which is a time when the American public had recently experienced some significant changes, including women’s suffrage, which had only taken place 6 years prior to the publication of this novel May of 1919. The women of this era had recently acquired a voice in politics, however, the social world does not always take the same pace as the political world. F. Scott Fitzgerald developed female characters that represented both women in their typical gender roles and their modern counterparts. I will be analyzing gender roles within the context of this novel, comparing and contrasting Myrtle Wilson, Jordan Baker, and Daisy Buchanan alongside one another, as well as comparing and contrasting their interactions with the men in the novel.
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 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.
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
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.
Daisy’s character is built with association of innocence and purity. Narrator in the novel mentions, “They were both in white, and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house” (18). In this passage, the narrator talks about Daisy and Daisy’s friend, Jordan. They both were dressed in white, which represents the purity and innocence. Daisy’s exterior beauty is pure and innocence, but her interior self represents false purity and innocence in the novel. When Daisy and Gatsby reunites after five years, they seem to have found their love for each other, although Daisy loves the attention. Daisy is aware of her husband’s affair but still does nothing about it. Daisy’s response to Gatsby’s wealth proves the love Daisy has for money, especially the shirts. Narrator mentions in the novel, “Suddenly, with a strained sound, Daisy bent her head into the shorts and began to cry stormily” (92). This describes that’s for Daisy the shirts represents wealth. Daisy bows her head into the shirts representing her interest in wealthy materialism. Daisy doesn’t cry because of the pure affection unlike Gatsby.
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.
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.
Throughout time women have been written as the lesser sex weaker, secondary characters. They are portrayed as dumb, stupid, and nothing more that their fading beauty. They are written as if they need to be saved or helped because they cannot help themselves. Women, such as Daisy Buchanan who believes all a women can be is a “beautiful little fool”, Mrs Mallard who quite died when she lost her freedom from her husband, Eliza Perkins who rights the main character a woman who is a mental health patient who happens to be a woman being locked up by her husband, and then Carlos Andres Gomez who recognizes the sexism problem and wants to change it. Women in The Great Gatsby, “The Story of an Hour,” “The Yellow Wall Paper” and the poem “When” are
To have a strong American Dream, there must be a fear of failure. In both works, failure is defined as losing manhood, and success is equated with being the “ideal male”. The American Dream becomes an extension of masculinity attained through material possessions, work ethic, and status. Manhood is represented by the determination, achievement, and accomplishment, which makes failure more threatening as it equates to the destruction of the individual rather than his goals. Fear is another motivation which turns the struggles for greatness very personal for the cast. The theme of the film is based on antiquated concept that males are supposed to protect and provide for women; therefore, failing to succeed becomes a threat to the male’s domestic
Even if they disagree about other issues, all feminists believe patriarchal ideology works to keep men and women confined to traditional gender roles so male dominance may be maintained. Utilizing the precepts of Feminist criticism, it could be argued “The Great Gatsby” promotes a thinly veiled patriarchal agenda. Through Fitzgerald’s treatment of the three women in “Gatsby”, as well as masking the possible homosexuality of a central character, the novel seems to promote only the traditional gender roles, swaying uncomfortably from any possible variance.
From the start of the book we can see that women in the book are
“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
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”.