Roles Of Women In The Great Gatsby

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Tensions between all people, based on race, religion, and ethnicity, have shaped history and affected all lives. It is very easy to see that gender has affected many people’s lives and caused struggle. Women in history were viewed as an accessory to their spouses instead of being seen as independent individuals. From education to work, women were expected to follow the same path and live in the shadow of their husbands and male relatives. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a significant snapshot of the way women were treated in 1920’s. He attempted to forward his thinking about the role of women in society. In the 1920’s, women’s lifestyles started to improve by gaining more power in the home and workplace. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s characters, …show more content…

Daisy is a charming woman and she is known for that. Nick talks about her manners when describing her. Although she is still viewed as an innocent little fool, she is intelligent and very sophisticated. “‘I 've been everywhere and seen everything and done everything.’ Her eyes flashed around her in a defiant way, rather like Tom 's, and she laughed with thrilling scorn. ‘Sophisticated—God, I 'm sophisticated!’” (Fitzgerald 22). Daisy is intelligent and worldly. She went from loving Gatsby to later married a successful man who she thought she was in love with until Gatsby came back to the picture. She is living the American Dream and has the opportunity to become knowledgeable and live her life. Having an affair with Gatsby and being married to a successful man is something that many women would dream of. She has the choice to pick one of them, which at that age was unlikely. Back in the day, women did not have much …show more content…

She tries to fit in with the successful people around her and make a name for herself. She uses the affair she is having as a getaway to the world of the so-called elite. "I married him because I thought he was a gentleman. I thought he knew something about breeding, but he wasn 't fit to lick my shoe." (Fitzgerald 34) Myrtle married her husband not because she loves him or because he is successful, which he is not, but just to have the title of being married. Her affair with Tom spoils her and enables her to have what she could have only dreamed of. She is clever and does not give up on her life. She was not born into a wealthy family, she did not marry into one, but she found other ways to try to build her way up the