What Are The Women In The Great Gatsby

Myrtle yearns to be with Tom and live in his wealth but is prevented from doing so by Tom and Daisy. For instance, when Daisy tries to leave Tom for Gatsby, Tom does not exactly dismiss Myrtle, “…but there is no question that she would eventually be discarded” (Donaldson). Myrtle is so infatuated with Tom, she forgot that he can just as well choose Daisy over her. He has the upper hand, as a rich man with control over women especially when it comes to his relationships. While to Tom, Myrtle’s gender has made her just one of his possessions, to Myrtle, Tom’s rich and high status as a man has made him her only path to a higher class. Due to her infatuation with Tom, she often becomes jealous and possessive when she finds a threat to their relationship. Myrtle is so overcome with desire for Tom that she cannot stand the thought of him with another women. Even when she sees Tom in the car with Jordan Baker, Myrtle’s, “… eyes, wide with jealous terror, were fixed not on Tom, but on Jordan Baker, whom she too to be his wife” (Fitzgerald 125). Myrtle is so convinced that Tom is hers, when in reality, she is really Tom’s. Myrtle has almost forgotten the fact that as an inferior women, she has little control over the situation. The reality is that Tom was in control of the relationship and used Myrtle for his lustrous desires. Tom’s rejection of Myrtle causes her to become overrun with jealousy. In

Daisy sees this as does almost the exact same thing, only with Gatsby. By expressing this carelessness for each other, one can only begin to imagine the carelessness they have for other human beings. Tom treats Myrtle even worse than he treats Daisy, but Myrtle doesn’t seem to care, because she is mainly interested in his money. Tom doesn’t seem to worry about anyone but himself. In his own spite he ruins his life, as well as Daisy’s, Gatsby’s, and Myrtle’s. Daisy shows her carelessness during the time where Jordan, Tom, Daisy, Nick and Gatsby go to town. Her and Gatsby act like they are in love and make Tom incredibly jealous even though he is having his own affair. Tom accuses Gatsby of trying to start trouble in the Buchanan house, and they begin to fight. Daisy yells at Tom and tells him that she no longer loves him and is in love with Gatsby. Tom proceeds to tell everyone how Gatsby came across his money, and once Daisy finds out it was by illegal gambling and crime, she seems much less interested in him. Daisy appears to be more interested on what is on the outside of people, rather than the inside.

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 Wilson is the second major character in The Great Gatsby. She is about 30 years old and is “faintly stout but she carried her surplus flesh sensuously as some woman can” (The Great Gatsby: Character). Myrtle is married to George Wilson, also a mistress to Tom Buchanan. She is not happy with her marriage nor her lifestyle. Myrtle is part of the lower class of society making her poor. With them being poor they end up living in their car garage. George seemed like a gentleman and that is why Myrtle married him, but turns out that he wasn’t. Tom is part the upper class of society which attracts Myrtle to him. They spend a lot of time in the city together. She has an excuse to tell George that she is visiting her sister. George is getting a suspicion that Myrtle is up to no good, and locks her up in a closet. Myrtle being upset, notices a yellow car thinking it was Tom because she noticed him driving it earlier, she runs to the car to get away from George

Myrtle Wilson is the other partner in Tom Buchannan’s affair. She is of a simpler lifestyle living on the “edge of the wasteland…contiguous to absolutely nothing.”(Gatsby 24). Nick describes her “a thick woman” “in [her] middle thirties” (Gatsby 25), the average woman in that time. Once she and Tom get off the train, she immediately buys a dog, and then makes a point to buy a rather expensive dog as well. When she arrives to her sister’s house, where a party is taking place, Nick says that she “changed her costume” (Gatsby 30). Because a costume is also the attire performers wear, Nick is giving us the impression that all of this is a play, a facade to act wealthy when in fact she is not. Nick also says “with the influence of the dress her personality had also undergone a change. The intense vitality that had been so remarkable in the garage was converted into impressive hauteur” (Gatsby 30), again another indicator of her “performance” of a wealthy woman. Soon, she and Tom “discuss in impassioned voices” whether she had any “right to mention Daisy’s name” (Gatsby 37). Tom punches her after this, but still left the party with her. Myrtle is now a woman with no self-respect, due to her allowing a man, though he may be rich, to physically assault her, instead of having a man who truly cares for her not being well off.

            Tom knew Myrtle better than any of the main characters.  He had met her on a train headed for New York.  When the train reached the city, she went with him in a taxi, and their affair began.  Tom never made much of an effort to keep their relationship secret.  In fact, he almost paraded her around in the presence of his acquaintances.

Myrtle tells George she is going to see her sister in New York all those times when she is with Tom. Catherine, Myrtle’s sister, swore that Myrtle wasn’t seeing anyone and was completely happy with George at the inquest. Daisy lets everyone think Gatsby drove the car that killed Myrtle Wilson. Jordan was described as incurably dishonest. The first time Nick heard of Jordan Baker was the golf tournament scandal.

Published in 1925, F. Scott Fitzgerald executes the Roaring Twenties through his famous novel, The Great Gatsby. During the 1920’s, the economy was booming, the Jazz Era arrived, and people became spiritually free and wealthy. But on a different approach, crime, prohibition, and the fight for women’s rights were provoking. Depending on background, wealth, and morals, women were challenged to be equally accepted and venture the Roaring Twenties. The main feminine characters; Daisy Buchanan, Jordan Baker, and Myrtle Wilson all strive to succeed in the American dream, but they are each limited in different ways.

The Great Gatsby was written in 1925 to depict the American Dream. During this time, there was an ideal lifestyle for men and women. Ideally, women were meant to be housewives and men were meant to be the providers. Characters such as Daisy, Myrtle , and Jordan all represent different lifestyles and ways of obtaining the American dream. Daisy Buchanan, who uses her beauty to get what she wants. Myrtle Wilson is the mistress of Tom Buchanan, who is at rich man and she is poor ,but she was still able to use his money. Jordan Baker represents the “new woman” who does not live dependent upon a man and begins to dress in a different style.

Women today have many opportunities the women of the 1920’s did not have, although many will still marry for sole reason of having someone to support them. In F.scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, he writes about several female characters who are clearly displayed to us. Although the story revolves around a man chasing his dreams, the female character stand out. Daisy bushman, myrtle Wilson, and Jordan Baker all have different wants and needs in their lives but the restrictions of their lives affect them all differently.

Tom is furious about Daisy having an affair, but the double standard being he is doing the same to her for some time now with Myrtle. When Nick, Tom, Gatsby, Daisy and Jordan are on their way to town Myrtle sees Jordan in the car with Tom when they had stopped for gas and automatically assumes that is his wife. She immediately becomes jealous of Jordan. I see no point in any of them being jealous or angry with one another because Myrtle has a great husband, but does not want to be with him because he is poor. Tom is just cheating on Daisy for who knows what reason.

Wilson gives to Myrtle his complete trust in the same way he provides Myrtle with what she asks for, but she abuses it. She takes her husband for granted while at the same time, she gazes at Tom sitting on a pedestal she has made for him. Tom is the man that can make Myrtle's every fantasy come true, but also the man that will lead to her early death. Myrtle is seen to be a fun and floozy mistress, but not as a real wife. She, as superficial as it may be, is not someone that Tom could take to parties and introduce to his parents. Myrtle controls Wilson, while Tom manipulates her simply for enjoyment. For example, Tom tells Myrtle that the reason they could never wed is because his wife, Daisy, is Catholic and she would never stand for a divorce. In this scene, Catherine, Myrtle's sister, tells Nick Carraway, the narrator, about the reasons why Tom and Myrtle may never come

The Great Gatsby was published during the Roaring Twenties; a time regarded as “a boisterous era full of jazz and wild youth” (dictionary.com). The wild youth likely refers to the modern women of the time, known as flappers. These women discarded the patriarchal norms of their parents and chose to blaze a new trail; one where women were free to take charge of their lives, and not be constrained by the men of their time. The most notable female characters in The Great Gatsby are women whom one would consider to live the flapper lifestyle; however because of their lifestyle choices this women are made a mockery of through the words of F. Scott Fitzgerald. “I’m glad it’s a girl.

The Female Images and Senses In the Great Gatsby The Great Gatsby is the representative work of Fitzgerald, which published in 1925. This novel profoundly demonstrates the spirit and the state of mind of the United States in the 1920’s. In this novel, the author not only depicts the typical male characters in American society at that age successfully, but also portrays the typical female images in American society through Daisy, Jordan, Myrtle three female characters. After referring some literature, I found most critics comment on the protagonist Gatsby's American dream and its symbolic significance, it is rare that the analysis of the similarity and significance of the three women in the novel.

In The Great Gatsby, Myrtle is given no respect and is being treated like an object. This happened in the chapter 2 when Tom takes Nick and Myrtle to party in a hotel in New York with others. Later in the party Myrtle and Tom comes out of a room arguing about Daisy.“Some time toward midnight Tom Buchanan and Mrs. Wilson stood face to face discussing, in impassioned voices, whether Mrs. Wilson had any right to mention Daisy's name. I’ll say it whenever I want to! Daisy! And Da-” Making a short deft movement, Tom Buchanan broke her nose with his open hand.” This quote explains how women like myrtle are being abused by Tom and he is treating her like an object despite not having a healthy relationship. This paragraph is important because it talks about how in F. Scott’s novel The Great Gatsby Myrtle is given no respect and is being treated like an object despite being a women.