great gatsby gender roles essay

Gender Roles in the Great Gatsby

This essay will discuss the portrayal of gender roles in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby.” It will examine the characters of Daisy, Tom, and Jordan, and how they represent the gender norms and expectations of the 1920s. The piece will explore themes of power, freedom, and societal constraints, analyzing how Fitzgerald critiques the era’s gender dynamics. It will also consider how these gender roles influence the novel’s plot and the tragic fate of its characters. PapersOwl showcases more free essays that are examples of Gender.

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Looking at F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby through a feminist lens shows us how women in the twenties were portrayed within literature. Fitzgerald shows this by including gender roles, patriarchy controls, and double standards between the sexes. He shows these ideas though the lives of his characters such as Tom, Daisy, Nick, Jordan, George, and Myrtle. Fitzgerald is one of the best feminist writers of his time, he did not realize the impact that he would have on society.

Throughout the story of The Great Gatsby gender roles play an important part in displaying feminism. The life of Daisy and Myrtle shows the audience of these roles many times. As the story progresses Daisy and Myrtle slowly become marginalized, they fade into the pages as the men eventually push their voices away.

According to Methods of Advanced Literary Studies the audience can see that the women throughout the story are being marginalized  when the only real opinions or demands being heard are from the men. The women within the story are pushed to fit within social feminist norms. The audience can see this by how Daisy and Myrtle are both dependable on men, and can’t fully do anything by themselves. According to Cross Reference Project, The only character that resist social norms is Jordan Baker, she does this by not leaning on men in relationships to take care of her. Women within The Great Gatsby are portrayed as weak, fragile, and emotional beings. They are viewed as being worthless, and only useful when they become a commodity. Daisy is a good example of this because she is a commodity for Tom and Gatsby. Tom uses her as a trophy wife, only there for the show.

While Gatsby uses her just to show people that he has finally has everything. These two men both fight over Daisy, even though they say they love her, they both have different intentions for the relations. In the end the audience realizes that they both wanted to say that they had the “golden girl.” Another way feminism is prominent throughout the book is how men think of women as property. The audience sees this in the relationship between Tom and Myrtle. Tom buys Myrtle anything she wants to keep her there to please him.Tom thinks that he can get any women as long as he is able to buy her. This relation merely dabbles on the views of men towards women. It shows that its a mans worlds, and women are just pulled along for the ride.Men within The Great Gatsby are portrayed as being strong, dependable, intelligent, etc.

The audience can detect this within the lives of Tom, Gatsby, and Nick. Tom is very well off thus being dependable. Gatsby shows strength by fighting for his girl even when difficulties come. Nick shows his intelligence through his job as a politician. In the twenties gender roles were very straight forward. According to  NCpedia “Men were expected to deal with business and politics while women were to deal with the house, children, and religion.”Also within the story of The Great Gatsby there is a collection of patriarchy controls shown throughout. It shows that women within the twenties were oppressed socially, economically, politically and psychologically.Women were oppressed socially by not being able to speak their voice. This was because in those times women were known to have lower mentality than men causing their answer or opinion to just be a waste of time. An example of this in the book is when Myrtle was unable to speak her opinion about Daisy without getting hit by Tom for punishment.The Great Gatsby also shows quite a deal of economic oppression towards women.

Women were frowned upon if they got a job, they were not meant to be independent. A women’s “ideal” job within the twenties was to stay home, bare children, and to make the man look good. The only character that was able to escape this oppression was Jordan Baker, she was a well-known golfer who needed no man to support her. Jordan was a very independent women causing many within her community to frown upon her independence.Another type of oppression that women faced in the twenties was being political oppression. Women were being oppressed politically by not being able to vote. They were forced to be quiet and to stand behind their husbands with their decisions Daisy believed that standing behind their decision was the easiest way for women. She shows this by referencing to her daughter, “I’m glad it’s a girl. And I hope she’ll be a fool – that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool,”(21).

Women were also oppressed psychologically. Whenever women had any ideas men would automatically shut them down. Women were of the lower of sex thus making any of their ideas out of the question. When the ideas were shut down it made women feel as if they have no meaning. In the twenties women opinions were worthless.Within The Great Gatsby a double standard is also present. It shows the audience that men are above women and  society equality among the sexes has no meaning.This is shown many times throughout the book. For example when Tom and Myrtle were having their secret affair,  Tom was able to talk about George Wilson in a not very nice tone, but when Myrtle happened to say a thing about Toms perfect trophy wife Daisy, Myrtle gets a punch to the nose and a threat to never say anything again.

The double standard here is that Tom gets to talk trash but Myrtle is not allowed to. Myrtle is a women allowing anything she said to be wrong, and any man who does not like her opinions she says is able to take matters of punishment into their own hands.Another double standard shown throughout is how men are able to cheat and not be judged, but if a women was to cheat they would be criticized for their actions. For men it’s seen as an accomplishment but for women it just stigmatized them. An good example of this is the many relationships of Tom Buchanan. Tom was a married man with a family, but yet he was not satisfied so he got into a relationship with an unnamed mistress. Eventually when she wasn’t good enough to satisfy his needs, he would toss that girl aside and go to the next. This time the next just happened to be Myrtle Wilson. These relationships that Tom held shows his opinion on woman’s worth, and the audience can clearly see that he thought little of them.

As shown The Great Gatsby has many aspects of feminism within it. The audience sees this multiple times. Fitzgerald shows gender roles, patriarchy controls, and double standards between the sexes very clearly. He does an excellent job in making them easily inferred.  He also does a good job at including all of these aspects within the character lives. Fitzgerald made sure to not only include these ways in Gatsby life but also Tom, Daisy, and Nicks. Fitzgerald showed that women within the twenties were definitely not treated with equality, but rather that they were pushed under many standards that men did not have to follow.

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What is the role of women in 'The Great Gatsby'?

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Key Question

What is the role of women in The Great Gatsby ? Below, we’ll review the role of women in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and introduce three of the novel’s main female characters: Daisy, Jordan, and Myrtle.

Historical Context

The Great Gatsby is filled with characters who appear to be larger-than-life, living the American Dream in the Jazz Age of the 1920s. The 1920s was also a period of increased freedom for women, as young women of this generation distanced themselves from more traditional values. However, in the novel, we don’t hear from the female characters themselves—instead, we primarily learn about the women from how they are described by the two main male characters, Jay Gatsby and Nick Carraway. Read on to learn about the main female characters in The Great Gatsby .  

Daisy Buchanan

The female character we usually think of in The Great Gatsby is Daisy. Daisy, Nick’s cousin, lives in affluent East Egg with her husband, Tom, and their young daughter. Daisy is mentioned by Nick here: "Daisy was my second cousin once removed, and I'd known Tom in college. And just after the war I spent two days with them in Chicago." Daisy appears almost removed, as an after-thought, of an importance only as the wife to Tom. Later, we learn that Daisy was previously in a romantic relationship with Jay Gatsby, and that many of Gatsby’s actions have been designed as a strategy to win over Daisy.

In the novel, the male characters find Daisy’s voice to be one of her most remarkable and notable features. According to Nick: "I looked back at my cousin, who began to ask me questions in her low, thrilling voice. It was the kind of voice that the ear follows up and down, as if each speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again. Her face was sad and lovely with bright things in it, bright eyes and a bright passionate mouth, but there was an excitement in her voice that men who had cared for her found difficult to forget: a singing compulsion, a whispered 'Listen,' a promise that she had done gay, exciting things just a while since and that there were gay, exciting things hovering in the next hour."

As the novel progresses we learn that Daisy is the reason that Jay Gatsby has built up his opulent, lavish lifestyle. She's the reason, the hope-for-a-future that makes him dare to dream, and even dare to reinvent himself (from the small-town farm boy to the successful Jay Gatsby).

Jordan Baker

Jordan Baker is a close friend of Daisy from childhood. We learn that Jordan is a relatively well-known golfer, as Nick recalls having seen her picture and having heard of her before meeting her: “I knew now why her face was familiar—its pleasing contemptuous expression had looked out at me from many rotogravure pictures of sporting life at Asheville and Hot Springs and Palm Beach. I had heard some story of her too, a critical, unpleasant story, but what it was I had forgotten long ago.”

Jordan and Nick meet at a dinner at the Buchanans’ house. When the two meet, Daisy speaks of setting up a relationship between the two of them, and later they do indeed begin dating.

Myrtle Wilson

Myrtle Wilson is Tom Buchanan’s mistress, who Nick describes as vibrant and charismatic. When Nick first meets her, he describes her as follows: “Her face… contained no facet or gleam of beauty but there was an immediately perceptible vitality about her as if the nerves of her body were continually smouldering.” Myrtle is married to George Wilson, who runs an auto shop in a working-class area outside of New York City.

Narration in The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby is told from the perspective of Nick, whom many scholars have considered to be an unreliable narrator . In other words, Nick’s way of reporting on people and events in the novel may be biased, and an “objective” reporting of what really happened in the novel (or an objective description of the female characters in the novel) could potentially look different from how Nick has described the situation.

Study Guide

For more resources on The Great Gatsby , review our study guide below:

• The Great Gatsby Overview
• Review: The Great Gatsby
• Themes in The Great Gatsby
• Famous Quotes from The Great Gatsby
• Questions for Study and Discussion
• Key Terms and Vocabulary
• 'The Great Gatsby' Study Questions
• 'The Great Gatsby' Characters: Descriptions and Significance
• 'The Great Gatsby' Themes
• The Great Gatsby and the Lost Generation
• 'The Great Gatsby' Overview
• 'The Great Gatsby' Plot Summary
• 'The Great Gatsby' Vocabulary
• Role of Women (and Girls) in "The Catcher in the Rye"
• The Role of Women in "Wuthering Heights"
• Discussion Questions for Pride and Prejudice
• Atticus Finch Biography
• 'A Rose for Emily' Questions for Study and Discussion
• Discussion Questions for 'A Christmas Carol'
• 'The Jungle' Questions for Study and Discussion
• 'Wuthering Heights' Questions for Study and Discussion
• "Of Mice and Men"

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Great gatsby through the lens of feminism.

November 5, 2018

ENGL 100. Prof Whitley

The Great Gatsby through the lens of Feminism

Feminist criticism examines the ways in which literature has been written according to issues of gender. It focuses its attention on how cultural productions such as literature address the economic, social, political, and psychological oppression of women as a result of patriarchy. Patriarchal ideology has a deeply rooted influence on the way we think, speak, and view ourselves in the world, and an understanding of the pervasive nature of this ideology is necessary for a feminist critique. Demonstrating how people are a product of their culture, feminist criticism of The Great Gatsby reveals how the novel both supports and challenges the assumptions of a patriarchal society. The Great Gatsby displays various aspects of feminist philosophy by reflecting opposing principles of society’s model through very different female characters. By using a range of characters who respond to the figure of the New Woman, the novel shows how difficult it was to defy the norms of the time.

The novel paints a picture of America in the 1920’s. Before the war, women had no freedom, and they had to remain on a pedestal prescribed by the limits of male ideals. But now, women could be seen smoking and drinking, often in the company of men. They could also be seen enjoying the sometimes raucous nightlife offered at nightclubs and private parties. Even the new dances of the era, which seemed wild and overtly sexual to many, bespoke an attitude of free self-expression and unrestrained enjoyment. In other words, a “New Woman” emerged in the 1920’s. The appearance of the New Woman on the scene evoked a great deal of negative reaction from conservative members of society who felt that women’s rejection of any aspect of their traditional role would inevitably result in the destruction of the family and the moral decline of society as a whole.

The main female characters in the novel – Daisy, Jordan, and Myrtle – despite their many differences in class, occupation, appearance and personality traits, are all versions of the New Woman. All three display a good deal of modern independence. Only two are married, but they don’t keep their marital unhappiness a secret, although secrecy on such matters is cardinal in a patriarchal marriage. The women also challenge their assigned roles as females by preferring the excitement of night life to the more traditional employments of hearth and home. There is only one child among them, Daisy’s daughter, and while the child is well looked after by a nurse and affectionately treated by her mother, Daisy’s life does not revolve exclusively around her maternal role. Finally, all three women openly challenge patriarchal sexual taboo. Jordan engages in premarital sex, and Tom is even prompted to comment that Jordan’s family “shouldn’t let her run around the country in this way” (14). Daisy and Myrtle are both engaged in extramarital affairs, although Myrtle is more explicit about it than Daisy.

One of Daisy’s most memorable quotes is “All right, I’m glad it’s a girl. And I hope she’ll be a fool – that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little food” (16). Daisy speaks of her hopes for her infant child, which reveals a lot about her character. Her bitterness and cynicism are signaled as she expresses this devastating critique of women’s position in society with reference to her daughter. It is clear that Daisy is a product of a social environment that, to a great extent, does not appreciate or value intellect in women. While Daisy conforms to a shared, patriarchal idea of femininity that values subservient and docile females, she also understands these social standards for women and chooses to play right into them. In this way, Daisy is a more subversive feminist.

Jordan is prescribed as a more masculine female character and seems to resist social pressure to conform to feminine norms. Not only does she have her own successful career, something that most women in the 1920’s did not have, but her career is in the male-dominated field of professional golf. She seems androgynous in her appearance and is described as having a “mustache of perspiration” and being “slender, small-breasted, with an erect carriage which accentuated by throwing her body backward at her shoulders like a young cadet.” The numerous masculine references in her physical descriptions through words such as ‘mustache,’ ‘erect,’ and ‘cadet’ demonstrate how she was not the typical 1920’s woman.  She is also very honest and direct, where the patriarchal norm would be to remain submissive and quiet.

Myrtle’s characterization is more focused on her physicality, and she is more quickly undermined as artificial and even grotesque. Her death is undignified and stresses the destruction of her feminine aspects, with her left breast “swinging loose” and her mouth “ripped.” It is possible to argue that Myrtle is severely punished for her expression of sexuality, while Daisy, less overt about her illicit relationship with Gatsby, and a less sensual character altogether, is able to resume her life with Tom once she has left Gatsby.

The novel also abounds with minor female characters whose dress and activities identify them as incarnations of the New Woman, and they are portrayed as clones of a single, negative character type: shallow, revolting, exhibitionist and deceitful. For example, at Gatsby’s parties, we see insincere, “enthusiastic meetings between women who never knew each other’s names” (44), as well as numerous narcissistic attention-seekers in various stages of drunken hysteria. We meet, for example, a young woman who “dumps” down a cocktail “for courage” and “dances out alone on the canvass to perform” (45) and a “rowdy little girl who gave way upon the slightest provocation to uncontrollable laughter” (51). The novel’s discomfort with the New Woman becomes evident through these characterizations.

In conclusion, the women in this text are shown to be victims of social and cultural norms that they could not change, demonstrating how influential culture can be in shaping the lives of individuals. There is an attempt to redefine society and culture in a new way by gender relations and the women in this novel actively try to change the social norms through their attitudes and actions. It becomes clear, however, that patriarchy is deeply internalized for these characters, demonstrating how powerful and often devastating this ideology can be.

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Women’s Role in “The Great Gatsby” by Fitzgerald Essay

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The patriarchal ideology before the 1920s confined women to care for their men and children. Women were always expected to be submissive to their husbands and objectified as sources of pleasure. Fitzgerald’s work, The Great Gatsby, portrays women as people who hold little power, are emotional and fragile, and are only considered valuable when they are used as commodities. Tough the marginalization of women is evident in the novel. It further portrays their ability to take charge and pursue their lives’ desires by leveraging the little power of their beauty. Daisy, Myrtle, and Jordan’s character traits play the role of encouraging women to liberate themselves from patriarchal norms and motivate them to pursue their dreams. However, the tragic end of Myrtle cautions them to be more careful in their pursuit (Fitzgerald 103). Though the women in the novel are depicted as careless, treacherous, and selfish, the author uses them to underscore the power of the will to rebel against societal norms in pursuit of happiness.

Fitzgerald represents Myrtle as a figurative prisoner of social class at the beginning of the novel. Her marriage to George subjected her to abject poverty, misery, and suffering. Though she was depressed about her situation, societal norms of remaining faithful to her husband imprisoned her, and she could not escape. When she finally gets the courage to step out to be a rich man’s mistress, she finds herself in yet another prison. The metaphorical prison she finds herself in is the false hope that Buchanan will divorce his wife in her favor. Buchanan saw Myrtle as an object of pleasure and had no intention of marrying her (Fitzgerald 77). It takes courage and a tough stand against society for people to liberate themselves from such prisons. Myrtle’s decision to cheat on her husband to get a better life shows that people must be ready to bend societal norms to get out of figurative prisons.

Decisions made in life are multidimensional, and whatever decision a person takes, they must face the consequence. Myrtle’s mistake in her pursuit of happiness was believing that Tom Buchanan loved her and expected him to marry her after he divorced Daisy, considering men’s characters in the patriarchal era (Fitzgerald 69). As patriarchy dictated, Tom considered Myrtle an object of pleasure. However, she proved society wrong by choosing a man to marry because he was promising and later ditching him when she felt he was not living up to her expectations. Her willingness to abandon her marriage for posh life is evidence that pursuing happiness can make a person go against societal dictates.

Jordan Baker is a professional golfer whose character and integrity are questionable, and she uses lies and dishonesty to pursue her dream of a wealthy lifestyle. The author uses Jordan to represent ambition and what people can do to achieve them. She rose to be a successful golfer in the middle of a patriarchal regime that did not acknowledge women in professional and leadership positions. She further rebelled against the societal norms of being submissive to men and focused on achieving her dreams. Unlike Myrtle, who viewed men as the source of wealth and success, Jordan does not give a ‘damn’ about men and engages in deceit to achieve what she wants. She openly disregarded the social norms by doing what only men were expected to do, such as smoking and drinking in public, driving cars, and listening to Jazz music (Fitzgerald 46). The American dream is manifested in her pursuit of happiness, equal opportunity for success, and social mobility. Though she used dubious means and went against societal norms to achieve her dream, her persona encouraged women not to be limited by patriarchal norms and to pursue their dreams.

Daisy Buchanan is a beautiful young woman aware of the patriarchal norms limiting women in society. She is upset when she gives birth to a girl because women have no place in society other than becoming beautiful little ‘fool.’ She plays a critical role in teaching women to conform to society and still pursue their dreams. Though Daisy was in love with Gatsby before he went to war, her decision to marry a wealthy man (Buchanan) shows women have the liberty to choose whatever makes them happy. When Gatsby comes back, he is obsessed with winning her love back by getting involved in criminal activities to make money and impress her (Fitzgerald 17). She plays a significant role in teaching women to take advantage of their beauty and men’s desire to improve their lives. Daisy shows that women can reverse the patriarchal norms and control men if they take charge of their beauty. Her principal role in the novel is to show women that despite being despised in society, they can use their beauty to achieve their ambitions of a posh life.

In the 1920s, women were considered objects of pleasure for men and were only confined to domestic roles. The inability of many women to go against societal norms left them imprisoned in social classes and oppressive marriages. Scott Fitzgerald presents three women in the novel who show resilience to pursue their happiness despite being prisoners of different situations. Myrtle, a prisoner of a social class, makes a solemn decision to be a rich man’s mistress to achieve her dream. Daisy uses her beauty to achieve her objectives, while Jordan goes against societal norms and pursues whatever makes her happy regardless of what society thinks of her. Given these points, the role of the women in the novel is to empower others to liberate themselves from the limitations of societal norms.

Fitzgerald, Francis Scott. The Great Gatsby (1925) . na, 1991. pp. 68-103

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GENDER ANALYSIS IN F. SCOTT FITZGERALD’S THE GREAT GATSBY

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Fitzgerald's Portrayal of The Issue of Gender Roles in The Great Gatsby

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