Women In The Great Gatsby

During the 1920’s many changes were happening with women's lives. With the end of the suffrage, movement women were finally gaining more opportunities in politics and in the workforce. However, majority of the country still held the belief that a women’s role was to stay home and take care of their children. From their occupation to the way they dressed women were forced to a strict lifestyle. Not only were they pressured to stay home but pressured to dress. The Flappers movement changed the traditional belief people held on women, women were breaking barriers by dressing and acting against the norms. Flappers were known for not acting “ladylike”, meaning they would act against the expected behavior. Women were dancing, smoking and drinking, women were taking risks and finally making choices for themselves. Flappers strived to be treated equally as men and would dress how they please, going against the social construct. Women took this movement to show society that they are more than just a housewife. Through the flapper's movement, women were slowly gaining more independence and freedom in society. The Flapper movement pushed for women’s movement and has inspired several

Women “changed the rules”. The Flappers was a new ideal for some women. Many women rejected the model of behavior from the 19th century and tried to

In the early 1900s, women were just beginning to live as they wanted. Being able to have a paying job and women being able to vote for certain things was a huge change. What did not change as much, however, was society as a whole. Many men and some women did not like the idea of women being able to do these things. Two books that show the struggles of women in that time are The Great Gatsby and Their Eyes Were Watching God. In The Great Gatsby, a novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, it follows Nick Carraway as he goes through life in New York during the 1920s. During his time there, Nick reconnects with his cousin Daisy and sets her up with Jay Gatsby, who she was in a past relationship with. Eventually she breaks things off with Gatsby and leaves New York with her husband and daughter, leaving Gatsby to take the blame for a crime he did not commit. On the other hand, in Their Eyes are Watching God, a novel by Zora Neale Hurston, it follows Janie Crawford, a woman living in Florida in the early 1900s, as she goes through life trying to find her true love. Her quest for love began when she was a young girl, her Nanny forcing her into a loveless marriage at the age of sixteen. Throughout both books, the vast majority of female characters have been judged by others for going against societal norms by doing what they want, not what their husband or significant other told them to do. In both of these books’ time periods, women were expected to do whatever men said or told them to do,

The reputation and culture of women changed substantially with the emergence of the Roaring Twenties. Gone was the traditional, and sheltered All-American girl who aspired to a housewife. It was seen as inappropriate for these women to even show their ankles out in public. The new “Flapper” girl was a young woman who wore short and relaxed dresses, used makeup, smoked cigarettes, drank alcohol, and attended glamorous parties (Document 2a). Flappers were liberated and bold, and were the complete opposite of the traditional American housewife. The Flapper girl

Frederick Lewis Allen, in his famous chronicle of the 1920s Only Yesterday, contended that women’s “growing independence” had accelerated a “revolution in manners and morals” in American society (95). The 1920s did bring significant changes to the lives of American women. World War I, industrialization, suffrage, urbanization, and birth control increased women’s economic, political, and sexual freedom. However, with these advances came pressure to conform to powerful but contradictory archetypes. Women were expected to be both flapper and wife, sex object and mother. Furthermore, Hollywood and the emerging “science” of advertising increasingly tied conceptions of femininity to

In the 1830’s, the ideology of a true woman was to be morally and physically pure, godly, and beautiful (Dilkes-Mullins). Although the Flappers were very beautiful women, their questionable behavior put them in a category that was not considered a true woman characteristic. However, over time the appearance and ideology of the Flapper was accepted by mainstream America. The women were gaining their independence by having their own jobs as clerks and spending their money as they saw fit.

The 1920s were a time of change. The years that preceded were filled with new technology, inventions, and mass media. A new way of life was created. Although these advancements may seem beneficial to us, there were unforeseen consequences that affected the women of the 1920s and beyond. Popular culture in the 1920’s including movies, magazines, and advertisements transformed the way in which Americans viewed women. Some of these depictions liberated women, but they also constrained them.

Their husbands did not allow them to leave the house because they still felt that they were in charge of their woman’s life. For single women, the employment rate did go up. These women were able to become teachers and nurses. Some even worked in factories! However, it wasn’t as easy for housewives to find jobs.

The book Literature and its times : profiles of 300 notable literary works and historical events that influenced them, says that Historically people wanted ladies to be idle, well-mannered, and skilled in the ways of hospitality. In the book to kill a mockingbird, Scout says, “Aunt Alexandra was fanatical on the subject of my attire. I could not possibly hope to be a lady if I wore breeches.” This means that women had to wear dresses and skirts all the time. For example, the movie snow white was made in 1937. In the movie Snow White is cooking, cleaning, and running through woods in a dress and heels. When Snow White chooses to move in with dwarfs, she tells them “I’ll wash and sow and sweep and cook and…” but that's all she says she will do. She didn’t say she would do any hard labor. In the 1930’s that was most always the mens jobs. That's the way women were viewed. Also from Literature and its times : profiles of 300 notable literary works and historical events that influenced them, the book says “many people continued to feel that churches and clubs were the venue best suited to women's activities outside of the household.” It also says, “When her [scout] aunt occasionally invites the women in the neighborhood over for coffee, reshehments, and a discussion of church business, scout starts to unravel the mystery of what is expected of a lady in Maycomb, Alabama.” This was not just in

The minor female characters that often get look over looked are Mrs.Mckee and Catherine. These two women make a little difference in the book, but that is why it could be easily overlooked by the reader. Catherine is Myrtle’s sister who talks with Nick at Gatsby party. Nicks says that she is ‘slender’. She is around her thirties as most would say. Catherine is highly independent, more than Daisy, because she does not rely on a man such as Jordan. She talks to Nick about the relation toward Gatsby and Kaiser Wilhelm, the ruler of Germany during World War I. No one truly seemed to cared because they by passed her statement. She does not drink except at the notice that her sister died. That might be because of the confusion and mixed emotions.

Throughout the text of The Great Gatsby, we see evidence of the “Roaring 20s” in which it was set and the mindset of the author, F. Scott Fitzgerald when it was written in the 1950s. If we use this book as any indication of Fitzgerald’s thoughts we can see that he did not think very highly of women, especially within the upper class. All of the women in The Great Gatsby are either unpleasant, dishonest, or shallow.

“The flapper is growing stronger than ever ; she gets wilder all the time ...She is continuously seeking for something due to increased her store of experience. She still is looking for new conventions to break -for a new thrills, for sensations to add zest to life ,and she is growing more and more terrible”, said renowned author F. Scott Fitzgerald when asked to address the flapper phenomenon (Zeitz).Flappers were the epitome of the the twenties, the pushers against social norms , and the young rambunctious women who changed the meaning of what it was to be a woman. This new breed of women challenged the ideal traditional roles set upon them by previous Victorian generations. In Joshua Zeits “Flapper”, through unconservative appearance

In reading Henry James’ beautiful novella, Daisy Miller: A Study, one is forced to bear witness to a few disquieting facts pertaining to the upper class of late 1800’s America. Starting with that which is well known, it is quite obvious that the upper echelons of society have strict social norms. Though this has always been (and might well always be) true, they seem to have been quite a bit more stringent in the time, and many more were gender related. Men must stand when a lady approaches, women must not go out in public alone, one must not have a personal connection with “the help”, and so on. These norms seem to have been particularly restricting for women, and reduced their options significantly. The second, which also happens to be common

Judy Jones, therefore, embodies Fitzgerald’s “ambivalent approach” towards the changing gender roles in the 1920s society. She is the flapper - a beautiful, liberated young woman led by desire. As such, she symbolises the “New Woman” of the 1920s: She was arrestingly beautiful. The color in her cheeks was

During the Victorian Era (1837 – 1901), a new image of womanhood was founded and designated women as moral figures that were too delicate and frail to engage in hard labor that most women (i.e. the lower and middle class) were familiar with. Pascale and Schenome (as cited in Garcia, 2010) state that this social construct would later be known as “the cult of true womanhood”, and could only be accomplished by the upper class men who could afford for the women in their