Women In The Great Gatsby

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In the novel The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald uses characterization to examine the female characters to represent the way females were viewed during the 1920’s. The 1920’s was the beginning to a dramatic change for females. Fitzgerald uses multiple female characters to show all the different types of women in the 1920’s. The characters Daisy, Jordan, and Myrtle were the three that represent those women. The three of them all have different characteristics, making their lifestyles very different from one another.
The character Daisy is the first female shown in the text. She is initially shown as the cute, innocent, pretty, and rich girl. When Nick first encounters her in the novel, she is so worried about herself and wondering if anyone …show more content…
There were two main types of females; one being immobile and locked down while the other is free and rebellious. Daisy was immobile. She was unhappy in her relationship and also never had any control. She had to listen to Tom and do whatever he says because in the 1920’s, most women were dominated by their husbands and unhappy. When Daisy got the news that she was pregnant with a girl, she said “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.” (Fitzgerald, 17) Daisy is so unhappy with her life that she realizes what she say does not matter because women do not matter. This makes her think that she cannot succeed in the world by what she says, but by what she looks like. She wants her own daughter to survive in the world by her looks. Jordan on the other hand was a complete opposite. She was never controlled by anyone, and she did whatever she wanted whenever she wanted. Myrtle however, could be in the middle. She was very free and decided she wanted to do her own things. She was cheating on her husband with Tom, but Tom had full control over her. “Making a short deft movement, Tom Buchanan broke her nose with his open hand.” (Fitzgerald, 37) Even after he breaks her nose, she continues to see him. These all show how Fitzgerald portrays the women of the 1920’s into two separate
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