Oppression Of Women In The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald

Men have a tumultuous history when it comes to their relationship with women. Throughout history, Men have both held women up as paragons of virtue and dismissed their experiences as childish. Both extremes are harmful and limiting, as is shown in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. Throughout the novel, Tom Buchanan and Jay Gatsby vie for the love of Daisy Buchanan. Gatsby fell in love with Daisy five years before the book began, but was forced to leave her due to being drafted into World War I. After the war, he decides to go to Oxford in order to earn the money he told Daisy he had. Meanwhile, Daisy got tired of waiting for Gatsby and married Tom. Tom consistently cheats on Daisy, is abusive towards his mistress, and is a bad person

in general. Next, to Tom, anyone would look good, but Gatsby has his own problems. While Tom is violent and controlling, Gatsby puts Daisy on a pedestal and refuses to see her as she actually is. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, both Tom and Gatsby objectify Daisy and other women.

Throughout the novel, Tom complains that “women run around too much these days” (103); he views women as possessions and cannot fathom women living a life separate from a man.

Jordan Baker, a professional golfer, lives in the same city as her only family member. After she goes to dinner with a childhood friend, Tom complains “they oughtn’t to let her run around the country this way” (19). It seems that Tom has a problem with the fact that she isn't married and has come without a man. Later in the book, Tom feels so “perturbed at Daisy's running around alone, [that] the following Saturday night he came with her to Gatsby's party” (103-104). Tom is unaware of Daisy and Gatsby’s affair, but he is incredulous that women can be friends with men without viewing them as a potential partner. Tom does not trust Daisy to be faithful to him. Additionally, because he only sees women as things to be possessed he expects Gatsby to have the same

viewpoint.

Tom does not hold women who are pleasing him to the same standards of faithfulness and chastity to which he normally holds women.

He has an affair with a married woman and brags that her husband "thinks she goes to see her sister" (26). Furthermore, he doesn't hold himself to these standards. From the very beginning of his marriage with Daisy, he cheats on her. During their honeymoon, he gets "into the papers [with]... one of the chambermaids in the Santa Barbara Hotel” (77). This sets up yet another behavior pattern - Tom leaves when women need something from him. When the chambermaid breaks her arm, Tom leaves. While his child is being born “Tom was God knows where” (16). When Myrtle's husband locks her in her room, Tom "step[s] on the accelerator" (125). Tom is comfortable being callously independent and autonomous because he feels this is an intrinsic right of

manhood.

Tom does not listen to women, but he demands they listen to him. He dismisses Daisy’s complaints as “foolish ideas” (131). When Daisy says she is leaving him, Tom doesn’t even dignify her with a response, instead turning to Gatsby and saying, “She’s not leaving me!” (133). If a woman defies him, he becomes violent. When his mistress, Myrtle, disagrees with him “Tom Buchanan broke her nose with his open hand” (37).

Gatsby also ignores the most important woman in his life: Daisy. Even when Daisy directly tells Gatsby that she loves Tom, Gatsby dismisses her and believes his version of reality. Tom asks Gatsby about his intentions. Daisy "guessed at his intention./ ‘Please don’t!’ She interrupted helplessly… ‘Your wife doesn’t love you,’ said Gatsby,” (130). He ignores Daisy's wishes for his own and he disrespects Daisy when he speaks for her about her feelings. When Daisy says again that she loves Tom, Gatsby still will not believe her saying “I don't think she ever loved him… you must remember, old sport, she was very excited this afternoon… And the result was she hardly knew what she was saying,” (152). Like Tom, Gatsby does not listen because he does not value what a woman, a possession, has to say. Gatsby had this conversation planned out for five years and he won’t let what Daisy actually said get in the way of his dream scenario.

Gatsby sees Daisy as a marker of success. He spent his entire life trying to get money. He meets Daisy, “the first ‘nice’ girl he had ever known,” (148) and falls in love. Gatsby intertwines his love for her and his want for money and status: In Daisy, he finds not only what he desires but what others desire: "It excited him, too, that had already loved Daisy [and] it increased her value in his eyes,” (149). In Gatsby’s mind, if he could convince Daisy to love him, he would be above the others. The only problem is that "She vanished into her rich house, into her rich full life, leaving Gatsby-- nothing. He felt married to her” (149). Gatsby gets caught in the chase; he becomes obsessed with having Daisy revolve around him as he revolves around her.

After their relationship ends, Gatsby refuses to move on. He ignores Daisy's choice to marry and "doesn’t know very much about Tom, though he says he’s read a Chicago paper for years just on the chance of catching a glimpse of Daisy’s name,” (79). Gatsby skips over Tom, someone important to Daisy, only caring about what was important to him - possession of Daisy. He follows her across the country and buys a “house so that Daisy would be right across the bay,” (79). Daisy is unaware of his existence. Moreover, as far as Gatsby knows, Daisy is happily married. Gatsby pursues what he wants instead of accepting Daisy's decision, ignoring her perspective as does Tom.
In his pursuit of Daisy, Gatsby romanticizes the time they spent together.

When they meet again, “There must have been moments... when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams-- not through her own fault, but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion,” (95). Gatsby has built a mythos around Daisy so strong that it would be impossible for her to live up to his expectations. He especially idealized what he got from the relationship, saying “It’s hard to make her understand… She used to be able to understand. We’d sit for hours,” (109). It is rarely if ever, mentioned what Daisy got from their relationship. While Gatsby embraces how he has changed, such as his increased wealth and status, he refuses to accept how Daisy has changed. Gatsby doesn’t take Daisy’s child into account, and it is doubtful that "he ever really believed in its existence” (117). Gatsby only values his own growth and expects Daisy to stay unchanged waiting for him. He ignores her feelings, especially those towards her husband: “He wanted nothing less of Daisy than that she should go to Tom and say: ‘I never loved you.’” (109).

Both Tom and Gatsby refuse to see Daisy as a person, with needs, wants, and experiences outside of their own.