Daisy's Role In The Great Gatsby

Women in the 20th century, while changing, were still unequal and below those of men. In Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, he explores this and many other themes by telling the story of Jay Gatsby and his quest to rekindle past love with Daisy Buchanan, despite her being married with a child. Women throughout the novel are treated as lesser equals who contain no personal ideas or thoughts. Their purpose is to please the men in their lives. Throughout The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald shows how women are less than men by being treated as possessions looking through the Feminist literary lens. This is shown through Daisy being a trophy and Myrtle as being mistreated.

Society’s expectations of women now and in the past cause a huge controversy and conflict amongst women. The main three female characters of the novel The Great Gatsby have many conflicts with society and what is expected of them as a female in the 1920s. They are expected to be the server of man and to not be their own person, but this was a conflict with them. Although Myrtle, Daisy, and Jordan show case their conflict with society, they negotiate that conflict with their personality and their mannerisms.

Throughout the novel The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the character of Daisy Buchanan undergoes many noticeable changes. Daisy is a symbol of wealth and of promises broken. She is a character we grow to feel sorry for but probably should not.

“I saw them in Santa Barbara when they came back, and I thought I’d never seen a girl so mad about her husband. If he left the room for a minute she’d look around uneasily, and say: “Where’s Tom gone?” and wear the most abstracted expression until she saw him coming in the door. She used to sit on the sand with his head in her lap by the hour, rubbing her fingers over his eyes and looking at him with unfathomable delight. It was touching to see them together — it made you laugh in a hushed, fascinated way. That was in August. A week after I left Santa Barbara Tom ran into a wagon on the Ventura road one night, and ripped a front wheel off his car. The girl who was with him got into the papers, too, because her arm was broken

I believe that the character with the most questionable moral compass is Daisy. Even in my first question that I answered, it was showing how questionable her moral compass was. When she had just hit and killed Myrtle, she didn’t even stop to see if she was okay. When Gatsby had just died, she didn’t send a message or any flowers. She even knows that her husband is cheating on her yet doesn’t seem to care. She just lives on as though it weren’t happening. She doesn’t seem like she can tell the difference between what is right and wrong, and acts like the wrong thing she did are okay. This is why I think she has the most questionable moral

In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the color white is used to symbolize Daisy Buchanan. Daisy is a character who is known as naive and innocent, two words that are also used to symbolize the color white. In the first and second quote, Daisy’s clothes are described as white. This symbolizes her dressed in innocence, but it could also be a distraction from her materialistic ways. She is very materialistic because of her money from her husband Tom, and the money and material items could be a distraction from the fact that Tom was cheating on Daisy, making her naive.

Feminist standpoints are often overlooked in many great sources of literature. When further analyzing a text; the writer’s views on women may become evident to the reader. The female characters of The Great Gatsby are portrayed with negative connotations and stereotyping in an attempt to persuade the reader to agree with these descriptions.

To impress Daisy and lead her heart back towards her one true love, Gatsby had to increase his wealth by any means necessary. Unfortunately, many people including Gatsby result to illegal methods when it comes to making a coin, and that's exactly what he did to suit her desires. Gatsby, out of love had to make risky sacrifices in order to achieve such a high level of wealth. He participated with the mob through various deals shown throughout the novel, and it was apparent that Gatsby had “connections” with some very important people such as Meyer Wolfsheim. His job was to traffic and distribute alcohol by illegal means. To prove to Daisy that he has the funds to be with her, Gatsby had to reach her social status through illegal means as he

Women have been consistently marginalized and devalued throughout history. In The Great Gatsby, the characterization of women is limited to how the men in their life utilise them- a trophy wife, prize, and paramour. These women are not allowed to develop independently; their importance is dictated by the men in their life. F. Scott Fitzgerald is not bringing awareness to the inequality of women in the Roaring Twenties, but perpetuating it through the lack of characterization the women undergo.

The ‘roaring 1920s’, the post-World War I American jazz era, was a time of affluence and frivolity, social upheaval and transformation. The ‘second industrial revolution’ was underway, and technological innovation was pushing against the boundaries of social identity, socio-economic status and the established rules of social and moral conduct. Against this backdrop of 1920s America, four works of literature display an anxiety around social standing, an awareness of cultural change, an embracing of technological advance and the rise of deceit and corruption. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and Winter Dreams provide a first-hand look into the anxious, restless mind of 1920s adulthood, in which a man’s ambition was his highest social value, while his

Sergio Galindo Mrs.Sellars English 1302 April 8, 2024. The Tragic Fall Of Gatsby Despite his big ambition, he proves to be a tragic figure due to his foolish decisions and his misguided pursuit of the American Dream. Gatsby's life is built upon the illusion of wealth, success, and glory.

Myrtle also adds to this stigma. She longs for a life that is fun and glamorous, but reality is she is the wife of a pump mechanic, meaning she will never have access to mobility in class or status. She is a lower class woman, which led her to engage in an affair with Tom Buchanan; it is the closest she will come to feeling higher up socially. Myrtle will do just about anything to be a part of the upper class despite the consequences. There was even a point in time when Tom physically hits her, breaking her nose and yet she still stayed with him just to continue lavishing in this fantasy she so eagerly wanted to become real (Fitzgerald, pg 37). That scene and the dynamic of her and Tom represent the subordination of the lower class and the mistreatment of women within the lower class.

Love stories range from princesses to paupers but none can compare to the story of long lost loves. Although a common occurrence in the literary world, it is simply a classic, and no one told it better than F. Scott Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald wrote from a place of familiarity for he was absorbed in a love of his own which you could see within his writing. Many novels had been written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, but The Great Gatsby is arguably his most critically acclaimed piece. Set in the 1920s his main character Nick is a witness to the coming together and the falling apart of two lost lovers, Daisy and Gatsby.

The Jazz age or the Roaring 20’s was a vital time for women in America. One reason this was a vital time was because on August 18, 1920, the 19th amendment granted women the right to vote. This was also a vital time because America was changing from a more conservative country to a liberal one. The female characters in Fitz Gerald’s’ The Great Gatsby embodies the way women were back in the 1920s. Women before the 1920s were only seen as caregivers. In this story, the women were the total opposite of that. They changed from things such as clothing, smoking, and dancing. Daisy, Jordan, and Myrtle were all portrayed as the “New Woman”. There was Daisy who married into money but had a secret lover. There was Jordan who was this independent woman

Myrtle represents the contrasting women of the lower class. She is an opportunist; she is obsessed with wealth and material possessions. She will do anything to be of a higher social class. She is sexualised and objectified by the dominant wealthy man.