Modernism In The Great Gatsby And In

Modernism is the breaking of tradition that includes the embracement of racial, class, and gender struggles for knowledge about the senselessness and alienation of the time. Within earlier literature, women had always been regarded with contempt by a male-dominated society – a society that was more inclined to treat women as complacent to men in their lives rather than as individuals. However, literature around the rise of the modernist movement in the early 20th century depicted women as individuals of who insisted on their rights and choices. Male and female modernists used American literature differently to depict the role of women in society. While male modernists such as F. Scott Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby and T.S. Elliot in

Particularly, male modernists “disdained Victorian women’s writings; yet they revived the ‘woman of the past’ in their art” (Walls 229). Fitzgerald’s portrayal of women such as Daisy Buchanan and Jordan Baker embraced counter-Victorian era freedoms of drinking, driving, and associating freely with men, while he simultaneously promoted older beliefs that women had little impact in society. Specifically, Daisy’s wish that her daughter will become “a beautiful little fool” because “that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world” is an example of the belief that the lives of women were purposeless in society, apart from their expectations to maintain their physical appearance, get married, and remain at home (Fitzgerald 17). Furthermore, Fitzgerald illustrates Daisy and Jordan as restless women who had the freedom to do what they wanted, yet were unable to do so because of their indecisive nature. Fitzgerald mocks the new-found freedom that women have found in the 1920’s by pointing out how women had the time to go do new things away from their home life when Daisy continually asks: “What’ll we do with ourselves this afternoon?” (118). However, when Fitzgerald has women like Daisy question what will be done with their time, he highlights the inaction of women to make use of their freedom. T.S. Elliot’s The Wasteland introduces a woman wearing jewels who hears the footsteps of her husband, which prompts her to quickly begin brushing her hair and focusing on her cosmetic appearance because she is expected to focus on her looks. Ultimately, her conversation with her husband dwindles down to “What shall we do tomorrow? / What shall we ever do?” which parallels the restless features that Daisy Buchanan exemplifies in Fitzgerald’s writings (Elliot 2013). The