the great gatsby feminist lens essay

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Great gatsby through the lens of feminism.

November 5, 2018

ENGL 100. Prof Whitley

The Great Gatsby through the lens of Feminism

Feminist criticism examines the ways in which literature has been written according to issues of gender. It focuses its attention on how cultural productions such as literature address the economic, social, political, and psychological oppression of women as a result of patriarchy. Patriarchal ideology has a deeply rooted influence on the way we think, speak, and view ourselves in the world, and an understanding of the pervasive nature of this ideology is necessary for a feminist critique. Demonstrating how people are a product of their culture, feminist criticism of The Great Gatsby reveals how the novel both supports and challenges the assumptions of a patriarchal society. The Great Gatsby displays various aspects of feminist philosophy by reflecting opposing principles of society’s model through very different female characters. By using a range of characters who respond to the figure of the New Woman, the novel shows how difficult it was to defy the norms of the time.

The novel paints a picture of America in the 1920’s. Before the war, women had no freedom, and they had to remain on a pedestal prescribed by the limits of male ideals. But now, women could be seen smoking and drinking, often in the company of men. They could also be seen enjoying the sometimes raucous nightlife offered at nightclubs and private parties. Even the new dances of the era, which seemed wild and overtly sexual to many, bespoke an attitude of free self-expression and unrestrained enjoyment. In other words, a “New Woman” emerged in the 1920’s. The appearance of the New Woman on the scene evoked a great deal of negative reaction from conservative members of society who felt that women’s rejection of any aspect of their traditional role would inevitably result in the destruction of the family and the moral decline of society as a whole.

The main female characters in the novel – Daisy, Jordan, and Myrtle – despite their many differences in class, occupation, appearance and personality traits, are all versions of the New Woman. All three display a good deal of modern independence. Only two are married, but they don’t keep their marital unhappiness a secret, although secrecy on such matters is cardinal in a patriarchal marriage. The women also challenge their assigned roles as females by preferring the excitement of night life to the more traditional employments of hearth and home. There is only one child among them, Daisy’s daughter, and while the child is well looked after by a nurse and affectionately treated by her mother, Daisy’s life does not revolve exclusively around her maternal role. Finally, all three women openly challenge patriarchal sexual taboo. Jordan engages in premarital sex, and Tom is even prompted to comment that Jordan’s family “shouldn’t let her run around the country in this way” (14). Daisy and Myrtle are both engaged in extramarital affairs, although Myrtle is more explicit about it than Daisy.

One of Daisy’s most memorable quotes is “All right, 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 food” (16). Daisy speaks of her hopes for her infant child, which reveals a lot about her character. Her bitterness and cynicism are signaled as she expresses this devastating critique of women’s position in society with reference to her daughter. It is clear that Daisy is a product of a social environment that, to a great extent, does not appreciate or value intellect in women. While Daisy conforms to a shared, patriarchal idea of femininity that values subservient and docile females, she also understands these social standards for women and chooses to play right into them. In this way, Daisy is a more subversive feminist.

Jordan is prescribed as a more masculine female character and seems to resist social pressure to conform to feminine norms. Not only does she have her own successful career, something that most women in the 1920’s did not have, but her career is in the male-dominated field of professional golf. She seems androgynous in her appearance and is described as having a “mustache of perspiration” and being “slender, small-breasted, with an erect carriage which accentuated by throwing her body backward at her shoulders like a young cadet.” The numerous masculine references in her physical descriptions through words such as ‘mustache,’ ‘erect,’ and ‘cadet’ demonstrate how she was not the typical 1920’s woman.  She is also very honest and direct, where the patriarchal norm would be to remain submissive and quiet.

Myrtle’s characterization is more focused on her physicality, and she is more quickly undermined as artificial and even grotesque. Her death is undignified and stresses the destruction of her feminine aspects, with her left breast “swinging loose” and her mouth “ripped.” It is possible to argue that Myrtle is severely punished for her expression of sexuality, while Daisy, less overt about her illicit relationship with Gatsby, and a less sensual character altogether, is able to resume her life with Tom once she has left Gatsby.

The novel also abounds with minor female characters whose dress and activities identify them as incarnations of the New Woman, and they are portrayed as clones of a single, negative character type: shallow, revolting, exhibitionist and deceitful. For example, at Gatsby’s parties, we see insincere, “enthusiastic meetings between women who never knew each other’s names” (44), as well as numerous narcissistic attention-seekers in various stages of drunken hysteria. We meet, for example, a young woman who “dumps” down a cocktail “for courage” and “dances out alone on the canvass to perform” (45) and a “rowdy little girl who gave way upon the slightest provocation to uncontrollable laughter” (51). The novel’s discomfort with the New Woman becomes evident through these characterizations.

In conclusion, the women in this text are shown to be victims of social and cultural norms that they could not change, demonstrating how influential culture can be in shaping the lives of individuals. There is an attempt to redefine society and culture in a new way by gender relations and the women in this novel actively try to change the social norms through their attitudes and actions. It becomes clear, however, that patriarchy is deeply internalized for these characters, demonstrating how powerful and often devastating this ideology can be.

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The Great Gatsby: Analysis and Feminist Critique

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The Great Gatsby: Abstract

Introduction, the great gatsby: summary and analysis.

This Great Gatsby essay explores one of the greatest novels written in the 1920s. It was created in the days when the society was by far patriarchal, and the concept of the American dream was different. Essays on The Great Gatsby usually explore how much men had dominated society, which led to women discrimination and objectification; the novel will help us understand the concept of feminist critique.

The feminist critique is an aspect that seeks to explore the topic of men domination in the social, economic, and political sectors. It aims to expose how much women characters have been discriminated in the society through the study of literature. This sample essay on The Great Gatsby will apply the concept of feminist critique with reference to the F. Scott Fitzgerald’s work to expose some of the aspects of patriarchal society as revealed in the novel.

The Great Gatsby starts by bringing in a male character, Nick Carraway, as the narrator. First, the narrator is just from the First World War and seeks to settle and takes a job in New York. Searching for wealth and happiness, he rents a bungalow in West Egg next to a generous and mysterious bachelor Jay Gatsby, who owned a mansion.

Nick describes the mansion as “a colossal affair by any standard – it is an imitation of some Hotel de villa in Normandy, with a tower on one side, spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy, and a marble swimming pool, and more than forty acres of lawn and garden” (Fitzgerald 1).

The introduction analysis brings out a theme of male occupying a more significant portion of wealth. These two men were relatively young and yet so rich to own such property at their age. The mentioned women, Daisy, Jordan, and Myrtle, are just an attachment to the men in the society since they all at some level depict an aspect of lack of independence since men dominate every aspect of life.

Socially, men seem to dominate in the relationships in The Great Gatsby. Tom’s financial power sets him way ahead of that he can afford to have an affair outside marriage. That’s what he does in an open way as he invites Nick, Daisy’s cousin, to meet his mistress Myrtle Wilson. Nick’s reflection on the relationship between Tom and Daisy, Tom, and Myrtle shows a break of social norms.

Tom’s relationship with the two women is abusive and of so much control. He abuses Myrtle publicly in the name of making her straight by even beating her. Tom comes out as a man who has so much power to bully everybody, including Myrtle’s husband Wilson, he also has so much control in Daisy, his wife.

Usually, one will expect that Nick being a cousin to Daisy, will resist seeing their close relatives get involved in extra-marital affairs. Nick being a man, supports other men, Tom and Gatsby, in their moves. After knowing that Gatsby had been in love with Daisy before she got married, he allows reconnection to happen in his own house although Gatsby’s credibility was still in question to him.

He admires Gatsby’s having “an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness he had never found in any other person and which it was not likely he could ever find again” (Fitzgerald 1). This admiration overpowered his questions on Gatsby’s character and that of his company. This shows that men’s dominance was critical since women were to follow what the men wanted them to, not their choices.

The novel was written in a time when men could batter women if dissatisfied by their actions, absolutely ignoring women’s rights. In the meeting with Myrtle, when an argument ensued between Tom and the mistress, Tom broke her nose to shut her up. The whole thing looks normal and even when George complains to him, he is not moved by his cry.

Tom is the dominant character in the novel. He harasses people starting with his wife, his mistress, George and even Gatsby. Tom is seen doing the same thing Gatsby does, dating a married woman, but he has the guts to confront him on his affair with Daisy. When Myrtle died, he fires a battle between Gatsby and George by convincing him that Gatsby had an affair with Myrtle.

George kills Gatsby before killing himself as a sign of revenge. The revenge was purely egotistic to reclaim his position as Myrtle’s husband since his status as a man on top of the relationship had been invalid. This leaves a mark in moral decadence, which only happens in a patriarchal society that cannot be controlled by any other voice than the male voice.

The novel has so much influence geographically and culturally due to the approach used and the structure itself. Tom Buchanan’s treatment of his wife and mistress and Gatsby’s manipulation of Daisy, Tom’s wife, brings out the aspect of male domination. The male has a dominant part in the exploitation of power in the relationships, and marital status is nothing of a worry when one wants to pursue their mistresses. Men in the text have idolized women, and they justify their reasons for the exploitation of women.

For example, Gatsby’s life is made true by the fact that he managed to have a relationship with a lady he had loved before. He does everything to get her, which include him “buying a house in West Egg just so that Daisy would be just across the bay” (Fitzgerald 1). This was a crucial sport in being strategic in his plans.

Tom, on the other hand, uses his physical and financial powers to prove that he is in control. He and Gatsby set social structures that attract women to them. However, Nick, the narrator, was not able to relate with the unpredictable and manipulative Jordan Baker. Jordan Baker’s character of believing that she could do as much as a man could do scared him away. She is unlike Daisy, who chose to stay with Tom, although she was in the relationship for financial gains.

Gatsby describes her as one with “voice is full of money” (Fitzgerald 1). For Jordan’s belief in herself, Nick later blames his failure to cope with her on her partying, smoking, and drinking character without really revealing that he had the same character as being pragmatic.

Women in the great gatsby had been accustomed to so much submission; an example is in Daisy’s character. She has a complacent kind of character that makes it difficult to make her own decisions.

She exhibits incapacity to have an independent sense of self-will that Gatsby takes advantage of to win her by flattering her with words like “You always have a green light that burns all night at the end of your dock” (Fitzgerald 1). The fact that she had a relationship before with Gatsby was enough to lead her in deciding to have an affair with him.

Myrtle also belongs to the same types of women as Daisy as she engages in a relationship with another woman’s husband just because they met and liked each other. This aspect manages to bring out a clear definition of gender roles and identity in the earlier days when the novel was written. Men ask, and women respond without looking at what could be affected in their decisions.

The Great Gatsby sample essay shows how the novel brings out an aspect of both genders reclaiming their positions in society in terms of gender relations. Though the male has dominated, and the female has proven to be dependent on men, they both need to redefine themselves as the victims of social norms.

The male gender has dominated the economic and social part of the society making sure that the role of women is reduced to being subjects to the male exercise of power. This has been shown clearly by women getting trapped in the misogyny and manipulation set by men hence making it hard for them to stand by their choices. Their gender nature dictates the character choice in the male-dominated world.

The male exercise their power over the significant female characters by ensuring that they remain the sole financial sources, and the women exercise their dependence by remaining in their marriages despite their involvement in affairs outside marriage. Though there are men like George, who have lost their position, they still exhibit their ego by defending their marriages.

Fitzgerald, Scott. The Great Gatsby. University of Adelaide, 2005. Web.

• Short Summary
• Summary (Chapter 1)
• Summary (Chapter 2)
• Summary (Chapter 3)
• Summary (Chapter 4)
• Summary (Chapter 5)
• Summary (Chapter 6)
• Summary (Chapter 7)
• Summary (Chapter 8)
• Summary (Chapter 9)
• Symbolism & Style
• Quotes Explained
• Questions & Answers
• F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Biography
• The Book of Unnamed Midwife
• Jem's Character in the "To Kill a Mocking Bird" by Harper Lee
• The Corrupted American Dream and Its Significance in “The Great Gatsby”
• Tom and George in Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby
• Nick as the Narrator in The Great Gatsby
• Poetry analysis and Comparison
• Pamela: The Way She Lives
• Titles, Class and Identity as the Peculiarities of Ransom by David Malouf
• Should the Obama Generation Drop Out? by Charles Murray
• Comparison of the Opening Scene of Macbeth by Orson Welles and The Tragedy of Macbeth by Roman Polanski
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2018, June 9). The Great Gatsby: Analysis and Feminist Critique. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-great-gatsby/

"The Great Gatsby: Analysis and Feminist Critique." IvyPanda , 9 June 2018, ivypanda.com/essays/the-great-gatsby/.

IvyPanda . (2018) 'The Great Gatsby: Analysis and Feminist Critique'. 9 June.

IvyPanda . 2018. "The Great Gatsby: Analysis and Feminist Critique." June 9, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-great-gatsby/.

1. IvyPanda . "The Great Gatsby: Analysis and Feminist Critique." June 9, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-great-gatsby/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "The Great Gatsby: Analysis and Feminist Critique." June 9, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-great-gatsby/.

What is the role of women in 'The Great Gatsby'?

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Key Question

What is the role of women in The Great Gatsby ? Below, we’ll review the role of women in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and introduce three of the novel’s main female characters: Daisy, Jordan, and Myrtle.

Historical Context

The Great Gatsby is filled with characters who appear to be larger-than-life, living the American Dream in the Jazz Age of the 1920s. The 1920s was also a period of increased freedom for women, as young women of this generation distanced themselves from more traditional values. However, in the novel, we don’t hear from the female characters themselves—instead, we primarily learn about the women from how they are described by the two main male characters, Jay Gatsby and Nick Carraway. Read on to learn about the main female characters in The Great Gatsby .  

Daisy Buchanan

The female character we usually think of in The Great Gatsby is Daisy. Daisy, Nick’s cousin, lives in affluent East Egg with her husband, Tom, and their young daughter. Daisy is mentioned by Nick here: "Daisy was my second cousin once removed, and I'd known Tom in college. And just after the war I spent two days with them in Chicago." Daisy appears almost removed, as an after-thought, of an importance only as the wife to Tom. Later, we learn that Daisy was previously in a romantic relationship with Jay Gatsby, and that many of Gatsby’s actions have been designed as a strategy to win over Daisy.

In the novel, the male characters find Daisy’s voice to be one of her most remarkable and notable features. According to Nick: "I looked back at my cousin, who began to ask me questions in her low, thrilling voice. It was the kind of voice that the ear follows up and down, as if each speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again. Her face was sad and lovely with bright things in it, bright eyes and a bright passionate mouth, but there was an excitement in her voice that men who had cared for her found difficult to forget: a singing compulsion, a whispered 'Listen,' a promise that she had done gay, exciting things just a while since and that there were gay, exciting things hovering in the next hour."

As the novel progresses we learn that Daisy is the reason that Jay Gatsby has built up his opulent, lavish lifestyle. She's the reason, the hope-for-a-future that makes him dare to dream, and even dare to reinvent himself (from the small-town farm boy to the successful Jay Gatsby).

Jordan Baker

Jordan Baker is a close friend of Daisy from childhood. We learn that Jordan is a relatively well-known golfer, as Nick recalls having seen her picture and having heard of her before meeting her: “I knew now why her face was familiar—its pleasing contemptuous expression had looked out at me from many rotogravure pictures of sporting life at Asheville and Hot Springs and Palm Beach. I had heard some story of her too, a critical, unpleasant story, but what it was I had forgotten long ago.”

Jordan and Nick meet at a dinner at the Buchanans’ house. When the two meet, Daisy speaks of setting up a relationship between the two of them, and later they do indeed begin dating.

Myrtle Wilson

Myrtle Wilson is Tom Buchanan’s mistress, who Nick describes as vibrant and charismatic. When Nick first meets her, he describes her as follows: “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 smouldering.” Myrtle is married to George Wilson, who runs an auto shop in a working-class area outside of New York City.

Narration in The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby is told from the perspective of Nick, whom many scholars have considered to be an unreliable narrator . In other words, Nick’s way of reporting on people and events in the novel may be biased, and an “objective” reporting of what really happened in the novel (or an objective description of the female characters in the novel) could potentially look different from how Nick has described the situation.

Study Guide

For more resources on The Great Gatsby , review our study guide below:

• The Great Gatsby Overview
• Review: The Great Gatsby
• Themes in The Great Gatsby
• Famous Quotes from The Great Gatsby
• Questions for Study and Discussion
• Key Terms and Vocabulary
• 'The Great Gatsby' Study Questions
• 'The Great Gatsby' Characters: Descriptions and Significance
• 'The Great Gatsby' Themes
• The Great Gatsby and the Lost Generation
• 'The Great Gatsby' Overview
• 'The Great Gatsby' Plot Summary
• 'The Great Gatsby' Vocabulary
• Role of Women (and Girls) in "The Catcher in the Rye"
• The Role of Women in "Wuthering Heights"
• Discussion Questions for Pride and Prejudice
• Atticus Finch Biography
• 'A Rose for Emily' Questions for Study and Discussion
• Discussion Questions for 'A Christmas Carol'
• 'The Jungle' Questions for Study and Discussion
• 'Wuthering Heights' Questions for Study and Discussion
• "Of Mice and Men"

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The Great Gatsby

Analysis of the great gatsby through the feminist theory anonymous college.

The aim of this paper is to write an analysis of The Great Gatsby by Francis Scott Fitzgerald which was published in 1925. The first part of this essay is written based on a close reading. In the second part the feminist theory is applied to the concept of The Great Gatsby . Scott Fitzgerald was an American writer of The Jazz Age (which he named) or The Roaring Twenties. He belongs to the Lost Generation which is a generation of authors who lived thought the First World War. ‘They were considered to be “lost” due to their tendency to act aimlessly, even recklessly, often focusing on the hedonistic accumulation of personal wealth’ (Longley, 2019). What is typical for the Lost Generation is: ‘decadence, distorted visions of the “American Dream,” and gender confusion’ (Longley).

The main theme of this novel is money and the way how they can change people’s personality and goals in life. Characters have corrupt personalities and bad motivations in their lives. These motivations lead to wrong decisions and actions with which they hurt each other. I have decided to apply the feminist theory because the roles and rights of women in America are changing at this era. This influenced the society and the literature as well. My aim is to...

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Abstract [en].

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald encapsulates the Roaring Twenties, a period of social and political change. The economy is thriving, and the American Dream, with its promise of monetary wealth, happiness and upward mobility, is seemingly within reach. Females gain suffrage, and a New Woman emerges, the flapper, who can be seen challenging stereotypical gender roles with her short skirts and bobbed hair. Ostensibly enjoying increased freedom, she dances the night away at speakeasies, a cigarette in one hand and a drink in the other, defying Prohibition. This essay aims to evidence that the American Dream as constructed in the novel is a dream available only to the male gender, as the women remain shackled by a patriarchal society. By looking at The Great Gatsby through a feminist lens and with the help of well-established concepts within feminist critical theory and feminist narratology, this essay analyzes how the female characters are portrayed, along with their language, and their actions. The result reveals that in Gatsby’s world women orbit around the men, maneuvering for their attention, affection, and material wealth. Any transgressions of stereotypical gender roles result in punishment: loss of status, withheld affections, dismissal, or death. Consequently, instead of following their own American Dream, women are limited to pursuing the man who most successfully embodies it. Thus, for the females in The Great Gatsby, the American Dream stays an elusive idea as they remain reliant on the men to manifest it. 

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The Great Gatsby through the Lens of Feminist Criticism

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