Do We Sympathise with Women in the Great Gatsby?
What do you think About the View that there are No Women in ‘The Great Gatsby’ With Whom the Reader Can Sympathise?
On first looking into the novel ‘The Great Gatsby’, anyone who read it shallowly enough would find it near impossible to be able to sympathise with any female character in the book. Fitzgerald’s use of Nick as a narrator could arguably be the main view of negativity upon the women, as his narration warps the reader’s perspective on the characters through his male viewpoint. Also, Fitzgerald’s presentation of women is of very little positivity in general. Fitzgerald appears to have gathered the class types of women in the 1920’s era and conjured a stereotype for each of them. Daisy Buchanan being the typically beautiful, wealthily married woman of whom has men falling at her feet, Myrtle Wilson being the working class, vulgar woman who dreams of more than what she’s worth and Jordan Baker who is portrayed as the strongest female character who works for herself independently and stands on her own feet. These are the only female characters throughout the novel that are presented in any large detail. In comparison to the male characters, these women have been written in a way almost to highlight the positivity of portrayal within the male characters in the novel. Fitzgerald uses the 1920’s period to enclose smaller details of his female characters, using the era of fads, jazz, parties, revolution, freedom, and independence of women to structure the novel with themes of egotism and materialism. Daisy being the more centrally focused female in the novel examples all of these attributes of the 20’s within her relationships with people, her speech and her decisions during the novel. Wealth and glamour are vital in Daisy’s life evidently following with her marrying a man whose aggression is touched upon, proof of faithlessness and shallow characteristics however with the consistent ability to provide for her with the flamboyant standard of
On first looking into the novel ‘The Great Gatsby’, anyone who read it shallowly enough would find it near impossible to be able to sympathise with any female character in the book. Fitzgerald’s use of Nick as a narrator could arguably be the main view of negativity upon the women, as his narration warps the reader’s perspective on the characters through his male viewpoint. Also, Fitzgerald’s presentation of women is of very little positivity in general. Fitzgerald appears to have gathered the class types of women in the 1920’s era and conjured a stereotype for each of them. Daisy Buchanan being the typically beautiful, wealthily married woman of whom has men falling at her feet, Myrtle Wilson being the working class, vulgar woman who dreams of more than what she’s worth and Jordan Baker who is portrayed as the strongest female character who works for herself independently and stands on her own feet. These are the only female characters throughout the novel that are presented in any large detail. In comparison to the male characters, these women have been written in a way almost to highlight the positivity of portrayal within the male characters in the novel. Fitzgerald uses the 1920’s period to enclose smaller details of his female characters, using the era of fads, jazz, parties, revolution, freedom, and independence of women to structure the novel with themes of egotism and materialism. Daisy being the more centrally focused female in the novel examples all of these attributes of the 20’s within her relationships with people, her speech and her decisions during the novel. Wealth and glamour are vital in Daisy’s life evidently following with her marrying a man whose aggression is touched upon, proof of faithlessness and shallow characteristics however with the consistent ability to provide for her with the flamboyant standard of