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Women In The Great Gatsby

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As the father of modern psychology and psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud once declared, "The great question that has never been answered and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my 30 years of research into the feminine soul, is: 'What does a woman want?'" F. Scott Fitzgerald expounds on this question in The Great Gatsby with his three leading female characters Daisy, Jordan, and Myrtle. By Fitzgerald juxtaposing these women, it magnifies the similarities and differences of their societal roles, exposing that money was one of the roots of evil in the 1920s. Fitzgerald manipulates his words to propound on each of these significant women’s virtues. Each woman is considered beautiful by the parameters of her own societal class. Daisy …show more content…

Daisy is known as being the wealthy golden girl that has no distress. “Her voice is full of money” (127). Which implies that since she was brought up having material wealth, she speaks with a sense of refinement and perfection. When Daisy calls her daughter, Pammy, into meet her guests, Pammy says she got dressed before luncheon only "...because your mother [Daisy] wanted to show you off”’ (123). Daisy only views her daughter as an object that she can show off to better herself. Clearly, Daisy’s world revolves around only herself and allows Pammy in when there is time. Differently, Jordan is part of the high class and unmarried. She is portrayed as being deceitful on two different occasions. Once Jordan neglected to put the top up on the rental car and lied about it. In addition, during her first major golf tournament, there was an issue where it was suggested that she had moved her ball from a bad lie in the semi-final round (62). Whereas, Myrtle is from the Valley of the Ashes, the rough part of town. Desperately wanting to better her situation, she chooses to be with Tom. Myrtle just wanted the title of being wealthy, despite the abuse. By Fitzgerald choosing to contrast each character by enforcing different societal backgrounds, exemplifies the inequality of each

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In today’s duplicitous society, men often pursue the “perfect woman”. This woman is construed to be; fit, provocative and ravishing. However, in greatly distinguished American novel, The Great Gatsby, the men have strayed from stalking women for their looks. Instead, Gatsby chases Daisy to achieve her as a prize of his bounty and any affection Gatsby demonstrates toward her, is simply to appease to her sense of status and wealth. The author F. Scott Fitzgerald, exhibits Gatsby’s these feelings for Daisy through the clever usage of connotation, symbolism and metaphors.

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Daisy knows that in the world she lives in women are seen for their looks and ability to have a good time, rather than their success

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The quote “It makes me sad because I’ve never seen such—such beautiful shirts before.” (p.198). Further supported that Daisy was a gold digger. To Daisy, social status was a big deal.

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Although Gatsby is an intelligent man in business but he is very innocent with women. Nick has a famous quote about women’s dishonesty: “Dishonesty in a woman is a thing you never blame deeply” (Fitzgerald 59). Gatsby asks Jordan for help to get Daisy back; but he does not know that Jordan always dishonest everything. On the day Gatsby has chance to meet Daisy, he wear a nice, white suite symbolizes the

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Daisy Buchanan has fallen from grace down a never ending rabbit hole, but the only phrase that can have jested is, “Oopsy Daisy!”. Consequently, Mrs. Buchanan’s charming insignificant head is filled to the brim and practically overflowing as she contemplates all the ways she can achieve her dream of a flawless life. Spoiler alert, she will never see her dream sprout into a reality as long as she stays put in her dollhouse. Daisy’s dreams are simple, more money, attention, and status are all she desires to acquire her American Dream. Staying with Tom, having an affair with her past love, Gatsby, and taking off her Mrs. Perfect mask are her reasons for failure.

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Emotionally, Daisy, Jordan, and Myrtle are obviously quite different from each other. However, it can be said that there is a side to every story, and in the end all these stories intertwine, supporting one another whilst being vastly different at the same time. Daisy is portrayed as a classic southern beauty, or debutante, who uses distinct sex appeal to gather some amount of control over her surroundings. This is further corroborated by Ivan Štrba who states, “Throughout most of the novel all the major motifs created by imagery of summer, flowers, moon, stars, sunshine and birdsong cohere around Gatsby’s dream of Daisy, the idealized girl, but contrary images of gold, money and cars also identify her.” (Štrba, date unknown).

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“There are emancipated women abound in The Great Gatsby, especially at the parties. However, although many of them appear to be emancipated, they depend on men.” The Great Gatsby is placed in the midst of the 1920s, a time where new social and sexual freedoms were more acceptable than prior times. The women in this novel seem to be emancipated.

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Her face... contained no facet or gleam of beauty, but there was an immediately perceptible vitality about her as if the nerves of her body were continually smoldering." Her relationship with Tom is based solely on a physical attraction, which is a stark contrast to Gatsby and Daisy’s deeply emotional relationship. This reinforces Fitzgerald’s view of people in during the Jazz Age to be obsessed with appearances and objects instead of emotion and humility. Myrtle wants to improve her status throughout the novel, and uses Tom to do so. Myrtle’s corruption lies in her actions, she feels that she can only be successful by using her body to get what she wants.

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He refers to her as “this woman” when he describes how she “rushed out at [them];” his attitude towards this person he just ran over was less than of her being a human being and more like she was some stray animal destined to be roadkill. Between these three characters, they are all part of a web that was the vision of women in the 1920s. In a particularly powerful interaction between Daisy, the typical, submissive, beautiful woman; and Jordan, the accomplished, defiant and trouble seeking woman; we see these two personas mingle on an extremely hot summer day. Daisy is whining and crying about how she sees no future in the unbelievable heat, showing her strong tendency for overreaction and her inability to see beyond now. Jordan, however, replies to her, saying to Daisy to not be “morbid” and that “life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall”, showing her progressive

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F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel, The Great Gatsby, is full of themes of wealth, love, and tragedy, as well as a subtle but powerful representation of gender. 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 both man and society’s 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, which is shown through their behavior, beliefs, and ultimate fates and their personalities display both powerful and potentially harmful stereotypes of women at this time.

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In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, characters have very distinct identities that develop throughout the book and many inferences are needed to understand the characters. One example of this is Daisy Buchanan. Daisy Buchanan cares greatly about wealth and is a very careless person. Throughout the novel, many of her decisions are due to her greed and carelessness, even though those decisions may not be the best decisions for her. Daisy displays her greed throughout the novel; she marries Tom Buchanan because of his wealth.

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Erika Y Tapia IB English IV Ms. Marin 1A 10/05/2017 Written Task 2 Through Fitzgerald's novel, "The Great Gatsby", it is made evident that people are attracted to the drama but in actuality the novel marginalizes, excludes or even silenced within the novel. The novel tends to focus in on the 1920's and direct their attention to the two major women in this novel which is Daisy and Myrtle. The oppression that is directed towards females is seen as downgrading and how they always seem to signal women out on their beauty and even their flaws. The novel expresses how each person has their individual needs and attention that they need in order to establish a proper income on how much they are marginalized. To begin throughout the novel,

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773 Words | 4 Pages

The Great Gatsby Greed can ruin a person’s life. F. Scott Fitzgerald shows this in his classic novel, The Great Gatsby, a sad love story about the rich title character, Jay Gatsby, and his obsession to win back the love of the now married Daisy Buchanan, his former girlfriend. The extravagant lifestyles of Gatsby and the wealthy socialites who attend his parties lead to lost dreams and wasted lives. These men and women are absorbed by material pursuits. In Jay Gatsby’s case, all the money in the world could not replace what he truly desires, Daisy.

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1399 Words | 6 Pages

Myrtle is accustomed to living an underprivileged life where feminine power engulfs her, but Tom is too egotistical to allow Myrtle to speak with such authority to him. Similarly, Gatsby’s need for assurance from Daisy pressures her into revealing to Tom that she never loved him (Fitzgerald 132). Deep down, Daisy knows that she truly did love Tom once, but Gatsby’s assertiveness and persistence drives her over the edge to telling Tom that what the two of them shared meant nothing to her. Daisy’s attribute of being a pushover is revealed immensely because she refuses to stand up for herself. Daisy is used to enabling Tom to constantly control all aspects of her life, and that leaves her powerless in society.

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430 Words | 2 Pages

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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