Gender Roles In The Great Gatsby

Who is the American Dream? He is described as a man with a grandiose reputation. He might provide inspiration for you to succeed in this world, or he might be the one who drags you to the bottom. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1924 novel, The Great Gatsby, particularly centred around the roaring 20s, the American Dream gifts Jay Gatsby (new money) and the Buchanans (old money) with opulence, fuelling an overtly superficial culture found within the core of America. However, Theodore’s 2017 film, Hidden Figures, recounts the dream’s significance in the lives of three African American women whose intellectual fuel powered the first flight to the moon. These narratives depict two distinct interpretations of the dream, respectively: one driven by the

While Hidden Figures defines racial and gender biases that deter the character’s tenacity from supporting the space race, the characters in The Great Gatsby face classist prejudices that hinder their pursuit of romantic aspirations. As the head of the space task group says, "whoever gets there first makes the rules,", and in this case, the American Dream sprinted beyond the finish line.
The Great Gatsby embodies the wants of the American Dream, best characterised by the rich discrimination of classism between old and new money. After the war, a sense of modernism and economic prosperity defined the 20s thundering spirit. Fitzgerald manipulates this spirit into the concept of old and new money while simultaneously exposing the superficiality that the lifestyle has mass-produced. Because of the underlying classism of the 1920s, Gatsby's efforts to impress his aspiring lover, Daisy, by holding parties and flashing materialistic accessories never competed with her obsession with old money, which made winning her love impossible. She proclaims, "Even alone, I can’t say I never loved Tom... It wouldn’t be true." (Pg 126). Juxtaposing her earlier romantic feelings for Gatsby,

This begs the question: Why was the American Dream attainable in Hidden Figures but not in The Great Gatsby? The women in Hidden Figures respected the needs of the American Dream not because they wanted to, but because they needed to. This is best described by Mary Jackson when she asks the judge, "Which one of these cases is going to make you the first?". The application of a rhetorical question raises the possibility of becoming the ‘first’ for an African American woman who, despite receiving incessant remarks that it was impossible, yearned to become an engineer. This concept of ‘first’ triumphs beyond all social conceptions behind race and gender, quoting the liberty that the civil rights movement fought for. The audience interprets the acceptance of Mary Jackson’s case as a metaphor for her acceptance as an American who, like the rest of America, longed to reach the stars and not as a prejudiced African American clouded by uncomfortable stereotypes. She is held up as an independent, educated, and integral woman who could be the ‘first’ to challenge the strict assumptions that make up the American Dream. Yet Fitzgerald characterises Gatsby as a superficial man who confronts ‘successful’ happiness. He signifies this notion that money cannot buy happiness, which Gatsby ignores in his pursuit of