Theme Of Women In The Great Gatsby

The novel, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is about societal difference between men and women the 1920s. Throughout the novel this theme is played through our main characters: Tom, Myrtle, and Daisy. Fitzgerald uses the possessive relationships between these characters to enlighten the reader about women’s social ranking. He demonstrates how men were able to control women by making them feel inferior. The author describes the importance of social class for women in the 1920’s through the possessive and ultimately destructive relationship of Tom and Myrtle.

Since society has existed, women have been known as different from men. For the longest time, women have been known as the “weaker sex” when compared to the male. There purpose, especially in the olden days is to obey and please the men. However nowadays there seems to be a more equality between the two genders. But even today discrimination between male and female takes place all over the world. In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, you can see a lot of discrimination between the two sexes. The story takes place in the 1930’s and it has a bad view on women, they just got the right to vote for presidents, mayors, and senators. However most men thought that the women should only stay home and raise children, that they should not be involved in politics, and their ideas were not valuable. Women were treated as “house slaves” at times when all what they did all day, every day, was work around the house trying to improve the living for their husband and kids.

Daisy is shown as such a shallow woman, and is astounded by the smallest of things, a few nice shirts that Gatsby happened to own. We know that she is already rich, and can buy shirts of that quality, so we can deduce that she is just trying to get on Gatsby’s good side.

Throughout literature women are often displayed as idealized characters. Women in the eyes of society are plagued with the stereotype of being kind, nurturing, and tender individuals while men are established as ambitious, assertive, and tough. However, when the time comes for women to possess the qualities of men and men of women, a turnaround of events can occur. Women were the individuals that then shape the males into their ending personna. Shakespeare's Macbeth, George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby demonstrated the reversal of gender roles through portraying women as the instigator of the male character’s ultimate demise.

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.

Though the Great Gatsby is a male dominated book, there are a few women who have great influences. Daisy Buchannan is the main female character, having romantic relations with both Tom Buchanan and Jay Gatsby. Myrtle Wilson is a woman who is married to a hardworking man, but she remained unfaithful throughout the length of the novel. Lastly, Jordan Baker is probably the least mentioned woman but had an equally important role as the others. Fitzgerald used the development of the three women to further the plot and theme of the book and show the treatment and role of women in that society at that time.

One of the main characters in The Great Gatsby Daisy Buchanan, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, was the typical roaring twenties female. She was an attractive, wealthy, and very shallow lady, who could probably get whatever she wanted. She wanted money, even though she came from a well-known family in Kentucky, she wanted attention, and she wanted everything. She marries Tom Buchanan and is even wealthier. She starts to get bored and very careless and starts her fling with Gatsby. She really only starts her fling with him because she realizes how much money he has and how well off he is, she also knows how much he is in love with her and what he will do for her, Gatsby also has a high social status on West Egg, everybody knows who Gatsby is,

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Daisy Buchanan’s in the Great Gatsby is Jay Gatsby’s one true love. He throws huge parties in hopes of gaining her attention and winning her over. Her role throughout the Great Gatsby was that her beauty drew the attention of everyone. She is the definition of the American Dream and Gatsby seen her as part of his American Dream. “He knew that Daisy was extraordinary, but he didn’t realize just how extraordinary a “nice” girl could be” (Fitzgerald,149). This quote shows how Gatsby knew that Daisy was right for him. In spite of this women's roles were still not equal to men. For example, it was okay for Tom to cheat on Daisy, but it was absurd for her to cheat on Tom with Gatsby. In the 1920 the ideal woman was supposed to find a husband to take care of them.Marriage was almost a necessity as a means of support or protection. There often was pressure to produce children. (Women’s Rights, 4)

In the novel The Great Gatsby written by F. Scott Fitzgerald it encompasses the story of a derailed love story between a man and a woman. The main theme of the novel nevertheless tells the tale of a much bigger picture, the 1920’s as a whole. Fitzgerald depicts the 1920’s as an era of materialistic surplus and recklessness of the wealthy. After the first world war ended, the new generation that had come back from the war were star gazed by the idea of making money off the stock market and being able to succeed in the social rankings. Fitzgerald uses characters Nick and Gatsby, both who fought in the war, to represent the 1920’s trends.

The differences in the personality of women and men from that point and currently is upsetting especially with rights as well. In the Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald the modernist novel there is a man trying to live the american dream and has difficulties on his way to that point. The differences between these three women are catastrophic because Daisy, Myrtle and, Jordan are extremely different in their own way. These women have their own difficulties as well and the problems with Daisy and Myrtle are to the extreme with each other. Daisy is a very intriguing character she is soft spoken when first known and slowly develops confidence.

The Great Gatsby, and it gives us an insight into the gender roles of past WW1 America. Throughout the novel, women are portrayed in a very negative light. The author’s presentation of women is unflattering and unsympathetic. The women are not described with depth. When given their description, Fitzgerald appeals to their voice, “ she had a voice full of money”, their looks “her face was lovely with bright things in it, bright eyes, and a bright passionate mouth”, and the way in which they behave, “ ’They’re such beautiful shirts’ she sobbed”, rather than their feelings or emotions, for example, Daisy is incapable of genuine affection, however she is aimlessly flirtatious.

During the Jazz Era, almost every women was depended on men for their money. Wealth should not considered as important as respect and respect is something everyone deserves, not only men. The Great Gatsby is a novel written by F. Scott Fitzgerald about rich people that lived in New York during the Jazz Era. The Great Gatsby is about a rich man named Jay Gatsby who tries to win his love back from someone through his power and wealth. The role of women in The Great Gatsby is important because it talks about the amount of freedom and power they have compared to men. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, women are given no respect, controlled by men, and are treated like trophies to win over.

Fitzgerald reflects on societies opposing principles through very different women, Daisy, Jordan and Myrtle, in order to display various aspects of the feminist philosophy. Each represents feminism in contrasting ways. They challenge the roles of pre-WW1 traditional housewives. Before the war, women had limited freedom and were socially compelled to live by male ideals. However, in the 1920s, they demanded more freedom with drinking and smoking like men, which was demonstrated by these female characters. Jordan is direct in her feminism - she is more masculine and is dominant when she is expected to be compliant. Although Jordan is restricted by the social standards women were forced to live in, she

A social group is a group of people, who share common characteristics and can be grouped together by a common theme. Marginalization is the treatment of a person, group or concept as insignificant. Social groups, such as women, are often marginalized from the rest of society due to unequal views on women. Gender marginalization stems from the concept that men and women are not created equal leading to disparate conduct and views of a gender. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, gender roles are clearly recognized and the female being is presented as the less powerful, unimportant sex. Through the examination of their own marginalization, the loss of identity of the emancipated women of the Jazz Age and the unbalanced standards to