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What Does The Great Gatsby Represent America

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Why The Great Gatsby is Not the Great American Novel

Have you ever wondered what the greatest book of all time is? Or maybe more specifically, what book best represents America? This is a subject of much debate among scholars. Many books are argued to be the Great American Novel, such as Moby-Dick, To Kill a Mocking, Gone with the Wind, and The Grapes of Wrath. One such novel is the subject of much controversy in this issue, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and many people believe this book to be the Great American Novel. However, The Great Gatsby is not the Great American Novel because it does not represent all of America’s minorities.

The first major group excluded by the Great Gatsby, the so-called ‘Great American Novel, is people …show more content…

The book portrays women as corrupt, manipulative, and inferior. There are three main female characters in the book, Daisy, Jordan, and Myrthe. Daisy is portrayed as powerless in her own destiny. She says to Nick that she hopes her daughter will be a “beautiful little fool” because she believes that that is the best thing a girl can be in this world, and can’t run away with Gatsby because she is tied down to Tom, who won’t let her go. She is also portrayed to be unfaithful, easily wooed away from Tom by the handsome face of a past lover with a beautiful mansion and lots of money. Jordan is shown as the typical rich female stereotype, gossipy and aloof. She is shown to be extremely interested in the gossip of Tom’s affair and spreads it around with reckless abandon, even attempting to eavesdrop on a conversation about the matter between Daisy and Tom. She often puts snide comments into conversation as well, such as when she said “You mean to say you don’t know? Why, I thought everybody knew.” to Nick when he told her didn’t know about Tom’s affair with Myrtle. Myrtle is portrayed as the unfaithful golddigger, the cheating wife looking for money. She is always shown to be attempting to act and dress as the rich people do because that’s what she wants, to be rich off of Tom and to live the life the rich people lived in the great roaring twenties. Only three female main characters, and none of them are portrayed in any way favorably, leaving out another huge group of

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Therefore, The Great Gatsby turns America from the 1920s into a novel that reflects the altered economic and social positions. Once the war was over the attitude

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Have you ever read The Great Gatsby, and if you have, have you ever analyzed it? Personally, I have specifically analyzed the female characters in The Great Gatsby, and the author's message to the readers about feminine power. Daisy, Myrtle, and Jordan are the three main characters in The Great Gatsby and they make up the majority of the story. Fitzgerald’s, the author of The Great Gatsby, message to the readers about feminine power is that women are better off without a man. This is his point of view because he believes that a man will drag a woman down, and she won't be able to reach her full potential.

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In the novel, The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald portrays women in an extremely negative light. The idea Fitzgerald gives off is that women are only good for their looks and their bodies and that they should just be a sex symbol rather than actually use their heads. He treats women like objects and the male characters in the novel use women, abuse women, and throw them aside. I believe that Daisy, Jordan and Myrtle are prime examples of women in The Great Gatsby being treated poorly.

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Daisy shows her struggles with the social status of women through her daughter and relationship with Tom. Jordan proves that being a “new” women of the 1920s comes with a price of judgment and accusations of dishonesty. Myrtle seeks to become a member of the

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The book  The Great Gatsby written by F. Scott Fitzgerald is one of the most well known and loved books in America. Jay Gatsby, the main character is a wealthy man who highly believes in his allusions and in himself. Gatsby comes to represent America. .The Great Gatsby is a perfect  portrayal of 21st Century America and the readers can learn about the American Experience, the self image, and the illusions that so many try to live up to.     First, The Great Gatsby is a portrait of 21st century America.

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“America” by Claude McKay is a poem written in 1921. This poem talks about the love and hate relationship between America and African American people. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a novel written in 1925. Throughout the novel, it shows how people try to achieve their American Dream. In The Great Gatsby, the American Dream is shown through the characters wanting to become successful, rich, and gain more power.

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“The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a novel about love, wealth, and pride. He portrays each character of living the American dream. The main female roles in the novel consist of Daisy Buchanan, Jordan Baker, and Myrtle Wilson. They each are very different as well as similar and have their own specific situations throughout the novel. Daisy Buchanan is married to the wealthy and prideful Tom Buchanan.

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Females in The Great Gatsby “They moved with a fast crowd, all of them young and rich and wild…” (77). Taking place in the 1920s, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, features the wealthy upper class who live and spend extravagantly. The story, narrated by Nick Carroway, follows the current life of a man named Jay Gatsby who is the epitome of a wealthy, successful man. His influence molds together characters of the book, as many attend his large, extravagant parties. Although male characters are highlighted, three female characters specifically shape the plot of the novel through their common interests and differing attitudes : Daisy Buchanan, Myrtle Wilson, and Jordan Baker.

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The Great Gatsby is hailed as a great piece of 1920 's fiction due to its detailing of a new, fast paced America, and the way that America affected the population. These affects manifested as traits in people, and further developed into stereotypes. In the post World War 1 America this novel is set in, industry and technology were becoming readily available to the public, cementing these stereotypes into our population as we quickly moved along at a new pace. In The Great Gatsby, these people, actions, and relationships, are represented by the four main characters: Nick, Daisy, Tom, and Jay. F. Scott Fitzgerald uses these characters to symbolize the stereotypical people of a modern America.

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Women in The Great Gatsby Throughout the 1920’s, the role women played in society was changing. Fitzgerald shows this in The Great Gatsby by the characters: Daisy, and Jordan. The morals and iimages of the woman changed. During this time period females began to go against the “norms” of society.

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The Incomparable Gatsby, distributed in 1925, is hailed as one of the first bits of American fiction of now is the ideal time. It is a novel of triumph and catastrophe, noted for the wonderful way its creator catches a cross-segment of American culture. In The Incomparable Gatsby Fitzgerald, known for his imagistic and idyllic composition, holds a mirror up to the general public of which he was a section. The underlying achievement of the book was constrained, in spite of the fact that in the over a long time since it has come to be viewed as a great bit of American short fiction. In 1925, nonetheless, the novel filled in as a preview of the furious post-war society known as the Jazz Age, while today it gives perusers, in addition to other

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F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel, The Great Gatsby, is full of themes of wealth, love, and tragedy. Also during the time this book was written, women’s suffrage had begun, so women were taking their first steps towards equality with men. The three main women characters in the novel: Daisy Buchanan, Myrtle Wilson, and Jordan Baker, all have things in common but can be vastly different; they reflect the view of women in the early 20th century. The Great Gatsby portrays the characters Daisy, Myrtle, and Jordan as stereotypes of women during the 1920s, seen in their behavior, beliefs, and their ultimate fate.

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“I hope she’ll be a fool--that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, beautiful little fool”(Fitzgerald 17). This line, stated by Daisy, accurately demonstrates the perception of women during the 1920s. Women were seen as objects and deemed incapable of intelligent thought. In The Great Gatsby, author F. Scott Fitzgerald portrays women based on similar stereotypes from this time period. Daisy Buchanan, Myrtle Wilson, and Jordan Baker are all prominent female characters in the story whose behaviors and actions, although different, showcase the common desires and struggles of women at the time.

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Feminism is clearly evident in The Great Gatsby and can be shown by the contrast between the independent women such as Jordan Baker and Catherine and the dependent women, Daisy and Myrtle. They are different in their approach to their relationships even though their character qualities are similar.

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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).

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