Examples Of Femininity In The Great Gatsby

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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…

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…

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

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