Women In F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Aristocracy Of The Spirit World

Today, many witness the discrimination against one another, including the discrimination against females; though F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote “The I.O.U.” in the 1920s, many females relate to the way the men in the story treat the females. Fitzgerald created a story that focused on a publisher who aimed to publish the book “The Aristocracy of the Spirit World” knowing that the book would bring in money. Throughout the story, the publisher’s main goal is to earn as much money as he can; he even goes to such lengths as to make a man disappear for ten years. Though his journey to make money, he faces the problem of the character of his book being alive and the story being false. Many readers of this story focuses on the main character and money;

Fitzgerald creates these events to inform his readers of the way women are often treated or viewed in society of the 1920s; however, Fitzgerald did not realize at the time, he was also illustrating the way women are treated today in society. In one event in the story, Fitzgerald displays a red-haired female who uses the publisher’s book to play Tic-Tac-Toe; the publisher, though, seemed as if he mocked the girl and disapproved of how she was playing a game. Foe example, he states that the girl paused “in what must have been at least the semifinals of her tic-tac-toe tournament” (9). This little event that Fitzgerald creates, allows the characters to display a sense of disapproval towards females. The publisher believes that the female should not be wasting her time playing a silly game, but instead should be reading the book he handed her. This event, though small, shows the disapproval that men have towards females when they disagree with their actions. Continuing to another event, Fitzgerald has the character Cosgrove P. Harden state that “all women…they like to be miserable” (10). This purposeful statement allows Fitzgerald to demonstrate how men often see women; not to mention, that by stating this, Harden gives his disapprovemnt towards females attitudes and behaviors. Since this story was created in the 1920s, Fitzgerlad attempted to communicate how women are often judged and disapproved on how they acted and their attitudes. Another example of disapprovement in this short story is at the end. The publisher walks out to investigate the rukus outside and finds a large group of people who all uncovered the truth about Cosgrove P. Harden. When describing the crowd, he illustrates all the females in negative ways. His description includes “fat women with folded arms, thin women holding up