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Gender roles in Literature
Gender roles in Literature
Gender as a social issue of literature
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Males and females, no matter what we look like or what we do, are each portrayed differently based on our gender. Guys appear to be more muscular, and girls are supposed to wear dresses. Guys make all the money, while the girls stay at home cleaning, or cooking. These have been common stereotypes that still exist to this day. Men and women are obviously divided all around whether it is economically, what they wear, and who they hang around. Gender breakdown is a common characteristic in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald that is portrayed various times throughout the story.
The divide between men and women starts at the very beginning of the book. When Myrtle is first introduced in the story, she is described by the size of her breasts
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rather than judged by her personality, as shown on page 25 in The Great Gatsby. The narrator even makes the assumption that Tom only loves Myrtle because of her physical features, not just because she’s a nice girl. Nick also describes that her face does not even show any beauty, but how her body looks, makes you forget what her face looks like. As you read through the rest of the story, it is obvious that Tom wants Myrtle to fulfill what his wife does not give him. Another incident with Tom happens early on in the story with a fight that breaks out between him and Myrtle. Tom tells Myrtle to stop saying Daisy’s name so Myrtle decides to say “Daisy, Daisy, Daisy!”, and Tom breaks her nose on page 37. Everyone brushes this incident off and stays quiet, because if the girls were to say anything, Tom might hurt them as well. This example shows that the men are portrayed as strong, and dominant, while the girls are vulnerable and weak. Another characteristic is whose fidelity truly matters.
In The Great Gatsby, it shows that the men are allowed to cheat with whoever they want, but if a girl was to flirt or find interest in another man, it is a huge deal for the men. Tom is another great example for this because he shows numerous times of jealousy when Daisy shows love for Gatsby, or being hostile towards Myrtle’s husband, Mr. Wilson. On page 25, Tom brings Nick up to meet Myrtle, but they first have to stop at the garage (Where Myrtle stays with her husband) to get Myrtle. Tom doesn’t really care to talk to Wilson, even though he is doing some kind of car work for him, and even threatens to take the car somewhere else when Wilson explains it’s not a fast car. It’s explained in the story that Tom “glanced impatiently around the garage” because he isn’t there to see Wilson, he’s there to see his wife. Another example is towards the very end of the story when Daisy starts getting particularly close to Gatsby. Gatsby knew Daisy before her and Tom got married and have a very strong past. Tom is aware of this, but never met nor knew how close they actually were. When Tom realizes that Daisy is falling for Gatsby again, he gets very unsettled with them being together all the time. Page 103 shows the first sign of Tom getting protective over Daisy when Daisy invites Gatsby to go out with her and Tom. Tom says “Doesn’t he know she doesn’t want him?” and a little later makes an excuse for Gatsby not to go by saying
“She has a big dinner party and he won’t know a soul there.” This situation is very ironic considering he is having an affair on Daisy with Myrtle and never considered how Daisy would feel if she finds out. Tom’s relationship portrays very well that fidelity only matters if you are male, and if you are a girl that “gets around” it’s a crime. Men and Women are constantly divided in this story and very clearly do not have the same rights that men do. Men are much stronger than the women, and the women are supposed to be loyal, even if their husband is not. The main characteristic in this story is the inequality between genders which is shown various times throughout this story. I’ve only listed a few of the very many examples of gender breakdown throughout The Great Gatsby.
F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby which reflects the extravagance of the roaring twenties. Fitzgerald grew up facing adversity, but gained success from his publishings. Just as Gatsby’s reign of wealth and fame came to an end, Fitzgerald soon became an alcoholic. Fitzgerald wrote his third novel, The Great Gatsby, based off his own life experiences. Throughout his life he faced many obstacles that are mirrored in the lives of the characters in the novel. Growing up, he was constantly aware of the lack of privilege and wealth surrounding his family. Nick faces the same struggle to fit in socially because he lacks wealth and social status. Similarly, his relationship with Zelda was tainted by his adultery which he acknowledges as acceptable for men, but not for women. The sexism that Tom’s character exudes shows Tom’s underlying morals. The Great Gatsby resembles a reflection of
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.
Daisy is aware that Tom is cheating on her when the phone rings and he answers because she mentions to Nick she hopes her daughter grows up to be a “beautiful little fool” (21) because ignorance is bliss. In The Great Gatsby, kids are not a significant part of the story; just like in Henrik Ibsen’s “A Dolls House”, they are simply just shown off and played with by the parents and later sent away to be taken care of while the adults do their normal activities. While Tom cheats on her with Myrtle Wilson, she does the same to him with Gatsby. When Gatsby was at the Buchanan house for drinks, as Tom left the room, Daisy grabs Gatsby and starts kissing him, proclaiming “I don't care!” (122).
From the beginning of society, men and women have always been looked at as having different positions in life. Even in the modern advanced world we live in today, there are still many people who believe men and women should be looked at differently. In the work field, on average women are paid amounts lower than men who may be doing the exact same thing. Throughout the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston brings about controversy on a mans roles. Janie Crawford relationships with Logan, Joe and Tea Cake each bring out the mens feelings on masculine roles in marital life.
Wanting to be with her true love again, she sneaks visits with him without Tom knowing. Just like Myrtle had, Daisy torn into her own marriage. She loved both men, but as soon as it was found out, the men began fighting for her. “I glanced at Daisy who was staring terrified between Gatsby and her husband…” (Fitzgerald 143). This isn’t what Daisy wanted at all. At some point Daisy loved Tom, and it’s very likely that she still does, regardless of all of his cheating. Living a life of riches for so long has affected her with affluenza, blinding her morals as it did to Tom. When someone already has everything they could ever ask for, they’re still going to want more. Something to work for, or else life becomes boring as Daisy points out many times in the novel. When both men she loves are threatening each other and fighting for her fondness she’s realized what she’s done wrong. She’s fallen into the same trap as Myrtle, being stuck between two men, but she still has feelings for Tom.“I saw them in Santa Barbara when they came back and I thought I’d never seen a girl so mad about her husband. If he left the room for a minute she’d look around uneasily and say ‘Where’s Tom gone?’” (Fitzgerald 83). Gatsby tries to convince Daisy that she loves him and only him, yet Daisy actually loves them both. After Daisy was married she could think about anything except Tom, while Gatsby has spent the five
The twentieth century was filled with many advances which brought a variety of changes to the world. However, these rapid advances brought confusion to almost all realms of life; including gender roles, a topic which was previously untouched became a topic of discourse. Many authors of the time chose to weigh in on the colloquy. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, gender role confusion, characteristic of modernist literature, is seen in Nick Carraway and Edna Pontillier as they are the focal points in the exploration of what it means to be a man or a woman, their purpose, place, and behavior in society.
With the increasing popularity of female-oriented post-secondary education, the growing number of women working outside the home in professional occupations and the newly granted right to suffrage, women directly challenged the traditional notions of American Womanhood in the 1920’s. In just seventy one years since the Seneca Falls Convention, feminists in America accomplished sweeping changes for women politically, economically, and socially. Attempting to reconcile the changing concept of womanhood with more traditional female roles, male writers often included depictions of this “New Woman” in their novels. Frequently, the male writers of the Progressive Era saw the New Woman as challenging the very fabric of society and, subsequently, included
In this novel Fitzgerald shows Tom and George’s negative philosophy’s towards women. He shows in The Great Gatsby how men can be heinous, but he also shows the positive treatment of women by men in the form of Nick and Gatsby’s characters. Fitzgerald is trying to portray that there are a lot of men that mistreat women in the world, but there are those select distinguished few such as Nick and
Daisy Buchanan is the most significant female character in The Great Gatsby. F Scott Fitzgerald writes her as the most significant female because she is most like his wife, Zelda (Donaldson). Daisy is Gatsby’s motivation for wealth and why he wants to accomplish so much. He has longed for her because she has always been unattainable. Fitzgerald, like Gatsby was often rejected by women in a class higher than him (Donaldson). Zelda was Fitzgerald’s motivation for writing The Great Gatsby and many other works (Donaldson). It was a way for him to express his frustration and love for his wife. Zelda was the main female role in Fitzgerald’s life, much like Daisy is for Gatsby. Fitzgerald writes his relationship in order to cope with what is happening
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.
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
Gender Roles: In some respects, Fitzgerald writes about gender roles in a quite conservative manner. In his novel, men work to earn money for the maintenance of the women. Men are dominant over women, especially in the case of Tom, who asserts his physical strength to subdue them. The only hint of a role reversal is in the pair of Nick and Jordan. Jordan's androgynous name and cool, collected style masculinize her more than any other female character. However, in the end, Nick does exert his dominance over her by ending the relationship. The women in the novel are an interesting group, because they do not divide into the traditional groups of Mary Magdalene and Madonna figures, instead, none of them are pure. Myrtle is the most obviously sensual, but the fact that Jordan and Daisy wear white dresses only highlights their corruption.
From the start of the book we can see that women in the book are
How does the characterization of men and their role in society in the Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald compare to Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe in terms of success, failure and mindset? Also the statue of wealth was different in the two stories because, currency was different in the stories of the Great Gatsby. It was modern so the currency was money. In Things fall apart it was a similar point of time so they didn't have all the luxury cars and things like in the Great Gatsby.
Nick is astonished at this information. He finds it hard to believe that Tom, with a beautiful wife and child, would be having an affair with some woman in the city. Miss Baker thinks “everybody knew” about the affair, yet Daisy is still with Tom. Being too ignorant to make herself believe it’s true, Daisy is willing to stay in the marriage, even when she is presented with an opportunity from Gatsby to escape. Daisy is willing to stay with Tom just because he has “old money,” and that shows how important it is to her. Everyone else’s morals are just as bad as Tom’s because they know about what’s going on and know that it’s wrong, but they don’t say anything about it. Later in the story, when Wilson is looking for the driver of the yellow car that killed Myrtle, he also suspects that person of having an affair with...