The Great Gatsby- Women in the Twenties

1344 Words3 Pages

When one thinks of flappers, the first thing that pops to mind is the image of a woman dressed much like Carey Mulligan in The Great Gatsby (2013), bobbed hair, white fringe low-waisted dress, flat-chested and highly made up face. In the 1920’s, after the first world war, women’s roles in society began to change because they became more independent, both in clothing and actions. They defied the well-known appropriate feminine behavior and along with those actions came new fashions. They refused to live up to any rules, whether from their husbands or their society. Today’s modern women are the reflection of the 1920’s women. In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald appraises the changing attitudes of women in the 1920s in his depiction of America’s first stubborn and fashionable new wave of women, flappers.
Before World War I, a woman’s life was centered around her family, home, and children. According to Bryant Joyce, in his article How War Changed the Role of Women in the United States, a woman was known as a housewife. She was known to clean the house, take care of the children, cook for her husband, make utensils for the house, mainly the kitchen and be extremely dependent on her husband good’s will. Most women ran home bakeries, became nurses, unlicensed physicians and midwives. They weren’t pay for their continuous works, only the men receive money for their outside jobs (Bryant).
Although they were denied political powers, many women served as coworkers helping their husbands. According to Louise Bennet, in her article Women in the 1920s in North Carolina, women accepted the division of political labor without question. Family has always been a women’s primary concern. To serve their husbands and elders, they were dressed ...

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...attitudes of the women in The Great Gatsby. Through flappers, women today are easily fit into society. Flappers inspired us, and it’s our duty to carry on the silent endless work of our freedom.

Works Cited

Bryant, Joyce. "How War Changed the Role of Women in the United States." Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute. N.p., 23 Aug. 2013. Web. 05 Mar. 2014.
Fitzgerald, F. Scott, and Matthew J. Bruccoli. The Great Gatsby. New York, NY: Scribner, 1996. Print.
Kim, Tae H. "Seattle General Strike: Where Women Worked During World War I." Seattle General Strike: Where Women Worked During World War I, 2003. Web. 26 Feb. 2014.
McCarthy, Ellen. "Book Review: ‘Flappers: Six Women of a Dangerous Generation’ by Judith Mackrell." Washington Post. The Washington Post, 18 Jan. 2014. Web. 26 Feb. 2014.
"The Roaring Twenties." BBC News. Modern World History, BBC, Web. 24 Feb. 2014.

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