What Makes a Woman? In the age of the Roaring Twenties everyone was embracing a carefree, post- war lifestyle. Women began challenging social norms, becoming independent, promiscuous, and overall breaking free of the control of men. However, F. Scott Fitzgerald decides to place women in a more in a more male-dependent role in The Great Gatsby in which they embody negative qualities of women in the 1920s. Fitzgerald depicts the women of the novel as deceitful, sexual beings that are naturally subordinate to men through Daisy, Jordan, and Myrtle. Daisy exemplifies the naturally inferior role of women relying on the wealth of men in their lives to take care of them. When Daisy talks about her daughter she claims, “a fool–that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool”(21) establishing women’s subordinate role in which they are ignorant to the affairs of their husbands and expected to rely on their beauty to carry them through life. When Daisy is accused of infidelity with Gatsby in the hotel, Gatsby claims that Daisy is attracted to men of wealth and, “only married [Tom] because [Gatsby] was poor and she was tired of waiting for [him]”(137). …show more content…
Throughout the novel it becomes clear that Jordan has no problem lying if it results in her favor. During chapter 3, Nick recounts an instance at a party in which Jordan, “left borrowed car out in the rain with the top down, and then lied about it”(62) not only emphasizing her dishonesty, but the carelessness that goes along with her damaging someone else’s property. At Nick’s first party at Gatsby’s mansion he learns that Jordan had cheated in a golf tournament but dismisses it based on his belief that, “dishonesty in a woman is a thing you never blame