Gender Roles In The Great Gatsby

Imagine you get stared at by people that are judging if you are pretty or have a good body, you are controlled by your significant other, and you are blamed for anything. This is the life of a woman in the 1920s. In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, he illustrates how women are treated poorly and not as human beings. The males in the story control the females because of gender roles in the 1920s. The theme that Fitzgerald developed was, women in the 1920s are objects and to blame for the downfall of everything, which is shown through the characters Myrtle, Daisy, and Ella Kaye.

In the 1920s society saw women as objects because of their bodies, which Fitzgerald demonstrates through the character Myrtle. In the Great Gatsby, Myrtle

Daisy says this because in the 1920’s women’s gender role was to not be as intelligent as men. The men wanted them to be pretty and objectified, so they could control them. This is shown through the character Daisy because she is very pretty, but acts very ditzy and unaware so she can fit into the female “stereotype”, at the time. Daisy is also objectified by Gatsby because it is Gatsby’s goal to “achieve” Daisy. When Gatsby was with Daisy, Nick narrates Gatsby’s thoughts as “It had seemed as close as a star to the moon. Now it was again a green light on a dock. His count of enchanted objects had diminished by one”(pg. 93). In that quote Gatsby directly refers to Daisy as an object. Fitzgerald was directly expressing that in 1920’s society men viewed pretty women as objects because they were trying to achieve them, just like a trophy. Daisy, Fitzgerald’s temptress demonstrates how men only want women for their looks and especially Daisy for their “trophy wife”. In conclusion, Fitzgerald demonstrates through the character Daisy, how in the 1920s, society saw women as objects because of their

In the 1920s, everyone blamed women if something went wrong. Fitzgerald illustrates this through when Daisy hits Myrtle, because this causes everything to unravel. Nick asks “Was Daisy driving?” “Yes,” he said after a moment”(Fitzgerald 143). Gatsby becomes Daisy’s scapegoat, because he doesn’t want her to get in trouble. Fitzgerald makes Gatsby look like a hero, in this instance, which connects to 1920s gender roles because men were supposed to protect the pretty, dainty, objectified women. Another reason it feeds into the gender role of females being the problem is because Gatsby gets shot, for Daisy. Furthermore, Fitzgerald demonstrates through Gatsby, how females are to blame for everything by expressing a story about how a woman named, Ella Kaye, stole inherited money from him. In The Great Gatsby, Nick narrates Gatsby’s story by explaining how “It was from Cody that he inherited money--a legacy of twenty-five thousand dollars. He didn't get it. He never understood the legal device that was used against him, but what remained of millions went intact to Ella Kaye”(Fitzgerald 100). Gatsby believed that Ella Kaye “stole” his earned inheritance from him because she wanted all the money. Nick’s retelling of the story reflects Gatsby’s aggravated tone because he didn’t receive his money. This relates to feminism in the 1920s because people