Women’s Representation in The Great Gatsby Essay

In his 1925 novel, The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald, chronicles a story of complicated relationships between a group of men and women as they go about their lives in New York during the “roaring 20s”. Narrated by character Nick Carraway, the story exposes and upholds gender based stereotypes as the characters attempt to achieve their American dream. Daisy, Nick’s cousin, is married to Tom Buchanan, but quickly learns that Gatsby, a past lover, has returned from war and now lives close to her. As Daisy and Gatsby strengthen their relationship, Tom continues his affair with a woman named Myrtle Wilson. In addition, Nick and Daisy’s friend, Jordan Baker, strike up a relationship. In the novel, F. Scott Fitzgerald not only exposes sexist values of the time, but continually endorses them, through portraying the women as young and foolish and presenting them as unable to achieve the American dream without the help of a man or through dishonesty.

Women were clearly not on the same footing as men in the 1920s. In the novel “The Great Gatsby’’ by F. Scott Fitzgerald, females were depicted in a very negative way. The author portrays most females in the story as many of the stereotypes they were thought of back then. One of the more prominent ones he used was the assertion of male dominance, leading to the belief that wives should just stay home and be dependent on males (O’Donnell, 2018). As well as men, girls themselves see this as the role of women in society, including one of the characters, Daisy Buchanan who has this assessment of women herself.

Daisy Buchanan is portrayed as an innocent wealthy woman. She is innocent, wealthy, loving. Daisy was how people wanted women to be, although not all the characters in The Great Gatsby were similar Daisy, they were opposite of her. She was the stereotypical women from the 20’s on the outside, but more into the book Fitzgerald reveals she is not the average woman because she is shallow and inconsiderate to Gatsby. These characters we find later in the book are what women were starting to be perceived as because they were beginning to be more open with their emotion.

Everyone feels the need to be equal. Everyone wants to be recognized as equal to their peers, and during the 1920s, there was a huge push for equality between women and men in the form of women’s suffrage, with the Nineteenth Amendment extending voting rights to women as well. One 1920’s author, Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald in his novel The Great Gatsby, explored gender inequality and how it changed through his characters. In the book, Daisy Buchanan is a wealthy, upper class woman married to an upper class man, Tom. Their life is very stable, since they are both part of the upper class and have financial security. They provide room and board for Jordan Baker, a golf champion who is also part of the upper class, and both Daisy and Jordan represent how the 1920s changed the rights of women across America. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby explores major changes in society and historically significant shifts in gender and gender norms through the accessibility of the American Dream in the 1920s.

Would it be fair to say that women need a man to survive? In today’s day of age, if someone made this remark they would be condemned for making an accusation like that. However, when Fitzgerald made these claims in The Great Gatsby about women in the early twentieth century and their need for a man, he was not historically correct in the way he depicted the role of women. Fitzgerald gave society the impression that the common view of most Americans back then was that they saw women as inferior to men. By making this impression, he was extremely mistaken. In several ways, Fitzgerald’s perspective on women’s role in American society in the first quarter of the twentieth century is inaccurate.

The Great Gatsby is a best-selling book written by F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1925. This book took place in the roaring 20’s, a time that shaped America into what it is today. The women in this book were recognized as a huge influence on American culture. Daisy symbolizes decievement in this book by her evil wicked ways. Jordan symbolizes dishonesty by constantly cheating and bending the truth. Myrtle symbolizes beauty with her good looks and all around great bubbly attitude. All of these women are an image of what shaped America into what it is today.

Throughout history there have been a plethora of contradicting topics about men’s and women’s rights. These topics include: women can do what men can do, and men are more dominant than women are. These topics were extremely relevant in the 1920s when women were given the right to vote. When women were able to vote as men did, the barrier of gender slowly separated, but was never extinct. Around the same time of womens’ right to vote, “The Great Gatsby,” was written by Scotts Fitzgerald. In “The Great Gatsby,” Fitzgerald captures the view of male authority and dominance that thrived in the 1920’s. In this society, where men are portrayed as the preeminent gender, women are predetermined as lesser than the male sex. Throughout this novel, the reader is enlightened to the gender flaw of men overpowering women in the 1920s. Thus, in “The Great Gatsby,” men are portrayed to have dominant power over women.

Francis Scott Fitzgerald, depicting the social status and class of the American people, the pursuit of ‘American Dream’, establishes the role of gender, and the money, love, and sex relationship within the class framework, and gender’s impact on racism, and sexuality in his great novel, The Great Gatsby. The novel is the historical description of the American society after the World War I, how gender plays roles, how the society is driven by gender, how it leads to racism and sexuality, and the aftermath of these. The author presents each the social group comprising at least one person of each sex apart from a few exceptions to address gender discourse in a co-relation with social stratification, race, and sexuality. So the expectations, freedoms, and restrictions imposed on the characters based on their sex become apparent during the discussion of Tom and Daisy Buchanan, Jay Gatsby, Jordan Baker, Nick Carraway, and Myrtle Wilson.

The representation of female during that society is used through the characterization of daisy Buchanan. During a scene which she shares her thoughts on her new born daughter that shehopes will be “a beautiful little fool” because that is “the best thing a girl can be in this world”. Her reaction when describing the moment she found the

Society’s expectations of gender roles in the 1920s impacts men and women’s lives, but the expectations have a much larger impact on women. These gender roles are especially important in the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The story focuses more on the men which is a direct reflection of the patriarchal society that the characters live in. Daisy, an important female character, is a victim of society’s discrimination against women. Society’s perception of Daisy overlooks her true value. In Daisy’s time, the men, like Tom and Gatsby, have looser morals but are still superior to her. This leads to the creation of stereotypes causing her to be objectified by the men throughout the book. Once readers see the societal norms from the 1920s, they will begin to understand why Daisy is treated unfairly. The patriarchy that drives Daisy’s community creates the social norm of women being subordinate to men making it seem as though she is a possession rather than a loving companion.

Throughout the novel, Daisy appears to be corrupt, but as Person points out, the corruption seen in Daisy “is not so much inherent in her character as it is the progressive result of her treatment by other characters” (Person 251). Daisy is raised her whole life to believe she is subservient to men, and that they will take care of her. As a result of her thinking this way, she is treated accordingly by the men in her life. Daisy’s belief that she needs a man to control her life is evident when she is looking for a husband, “And all the time something within her was crying for a decision. She wanted her life shaped now, immediately - and the decision must be made by some force - of love, of money” (Fitzgerald 151). Daisy cannot choose a man for herself, but rather needs a man to make that decision for her. This indecisiveness is clearly evident that she believes men are superior to her, and that she cannot live without a man. This type of thinking shapes the relationships that she has with Tom and Gatsby, and thus shapes her life. Her beliefs and reasoning are representative of traditional women that were obedient to men as a result of their upbringing in a paternal

In the American classic, The Great Gatsby, Daisy Buchanan is depicted, through the use of symbolism and discourse, as vacuous and materialistic. This depiction positions the reader to view the American dream as a patriarchal construct which encourages women to obsess over objects, and simultaneously reduces them to objects in the eyes of men. Both the sense of wonder and the sense of loss are associated with women, and women are the object of the novel’s moral indignation just as they are the object of its romanticism (Fetterley, 1978). Set in the 1920s, the same time that F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote the book, the story delves into the absence of morality during the Prohibition in New York, especially among the female characters. The three main women within the book, Daisy Buchanan, Myrtle Wilson and Jordan Baker, are shown to have prominent vices and flaws, particularly Daisy. Throughout the duration of the events, Daisy is constantly objectified and ‘brought’ on many occasions throughout the novel.

The 1920s was a revolutionary period for women in America. They were just starting to gain rights, but they were still very limited in what they could and couldn’t do in the eyes of the men. They played an important role in society in different ways because they were all different in many aspects. The same goes for the women in The Great Gatsby. The women in the novel represent the two different types of women during this time period and have different impacts on those around them, based on their positions in society and their own unique personalities.

In life, relationships are not destiny, but they appear to establish patterns of relating to others. Failed relationships happen for many reasons, and the failure of a relationship is often a source of great psychological anguish (-). The literature tells, relationships have always tragedy and violence, due to the effect of male and females perspective. In Great Gatsby, Nick and his house affect Daisy’s life, Tom’s mansion, and Gatsby’s mansion effects Daisy’s life. In the novel, The Great Gatsby, F.Scott Fitzgerald utilizes varied settings to prove that male personality of the past and till now would keep women under their guard in a possessive manner, thus provoking others to attempt help women change to a less emotionally destructive lifestyle, and ultimately it shows that in a relationship where the foundation is made is on hope for a better future.

Susan B. Anthony once said, “The true republic: men, their rights, and nothing more; women, their rights, and nothing less” (Capobianco). This quotation demonstrates that males and females should all receive equal rights, regardless of the circumstance. The passage holds a meaning to equality, but carries the mistaken implication that men are keepers of higher status, and additional privileges, while women are deprived of these luxuries. The essence of Susan B. Anthony’s words seamlessly blends into the lines of a feminist which sound equality-minded, whilst establishing the notion that women will always fall short of their rights as in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. F. Scott Fitzgerald uses his novel The Great Gatsby to illustrate that women are portrayed as minor roles in society and are only seen as possessions to the men they involve themselves with. Daisy, a woman of wealth, class and with a careless perspective of life exists primarily as an embodiment of men’s fantasies. The narrator presents that even those of a lower class become infatuated with money and wealth as Myrtle Wilson, which leads her to become objectified by men. As a final point, Fitzgerald solidifies that Jordan who is seen as a masculine and independent woman always seems to become caught up by society’s battle to be taken over by men. The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald demonstrates the negative portrayal of women through their objectification by men while exhibiting how they have no