Gender Roles In The Great Gatsby

Does the male domination today compare to the extensive sexism of women throughout history? Today, sexist views are subconsciously prominent in various beliefs and expectations, such as biased women stereotypes and the pay gap. The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and The Great Gatsby, by Scott Fitzgerald, both coherently portray women in American history as submissive to male authority. The Scarlet Letter is a novel based in the 17th century where Hester Prynne, an adulteress, is stripped of her identity through public humiliation, but defies the societal views of her town and bravely accepts her faults. In The Great Gatsby, Daisy Buchanan is portrayed as a perfect and high-class woman whom men fall in love with the idea of her. Hester

As Hester stands upon the scaffold awaiting hertrial, the narrator states, “In a moment, however, wisely judging that one token of her shame would but poorly serve to hide another, she took the baby on her arm, and, with a burning blush, and yet a haughty smile, and a glance that would not be abashed, looked around at her townspeople and neighbors. On the breast of her gown, in fine red cloth, surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and fantastic flourishes of gold thread, appeared the letter A" (Hawthorne 14). Hester is on the scaffold, being publicly embarrassed for her act of infidelity and she realizes how contradictory it would be to hide the embroidered A with Pearl, her baby. Hester does not want to be viewed as shy or afraid and with pride and courage, emposes the A for the town to see. She is accepting to the blame and guilt and refuses to surrender to the biased views of women in a sexist society by the people in her town. In contrast to Hester, Daisy Buchanan conforms to the prejudice in her town and is extremely selfish and money-obsessed. Daisy is the described as the most beautiful, wealthy, and overall perfect women, an image of the American Dream. In the book, Daisy is talking with Nick about Tom and her unaccompanied childbirth and says, “'ll show you how I've gotten to feel about – things. Well, she was less than an hour old and Tom was God knows where. I woke up out of the ether with an utterly abandoned feeling, and asked the nurse right away if it was a boy or a girl. She told me it was a girl, and so I turned my head away and wept. 'All right,' I 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"