Emancipation Of Women
The Great Gatsby’s female characters suggest that Fitzgerald had very mixed views about the emancipation which American women began to experience during the 1920’s
When Fitzgerald was working on “The Great Gatsby” He acknowledges the fact that the female characters in this novel were subordinate and many were not emancipated, “The book contains no important women characters.” Fitzgerald stated in an interview, after the novel did not reach commercial success that “Women do not like it. They do not like to be emotionally passive.” This is hard to disagree with. Fitzgerald recognizes the post-war woman and connects her with her changing status, that of an emancipated woman.
In its simplest form, emancipation means freedom. However, we must consider its definition that emancipation is a term used to describe an act of setting free from the power of another, from slavery, subjection, dependence or controlling influence. So over all, an emancipated women had rights, freedom, independence and equality. Some of the women that Gatsby portray have these values, however many, even though they do not see it, are not emancipated; Daisy and Myrtle are clear examples. Furthermore, the women who are first portrayed as confident flappers who are “wanderers, confident girls” and “single girls dancing individualistically” are, by the end of the night, regressed back to “old men pushing young girls backwards” and “swooning backward playfully into men’s arms...knowing that someone would arrest their falls.”
Fitzgerald portrays many of the women in his novel in the form of a flapper, who became the representative symbol of the age. Young women with bobbed hair, favoured straight short dresses, wore make-up, smoked, drank alcohol, drove and generally flouted conventional social and sexual mores. Daisy and Jordan fall into this representative symbol, however Daisy is not as free as what Jordan is. Jordan’s status in the narrative is never quite clear, other than as a foil and in
When Fitzgerald was working on “The Great Gatsby” He acknowledges the fact that the female characters in this novel were subordinate and many were not emancipated, “The book contains no important women characters.” Fitzgerald stated in an interview, after the novel did not reach commercial success that “Women do not like it. They do not like to be emotionally passive.” This is hard to disagree with. Fitzgerald recognizes the post-war woman and connects her with her changing status, that of an emancipated woman.
In its simplest form, emancipation means freedom. However, we must consider its definition that emancipation is a term used to describe an act of setting free from the power of another, from slavery, subjection, dependence or controlling influence. So over all, an emancipated women had rights, freedom, independence and equality. Some of the women that Gatsby portray have these values, however many, even though they do not see it, are not emancipated; Daisy and Myrtle are clear examples. Furthermore, the women who are first portrayed as confident flappers who are “wanderers, confident girls” and “single girls dancing individualistically” are, by the end of the night, regressed back to “old men pushing young girls backwards” and “swooning backward playfully into men’s arms...knowing that someone would arrest their falls.”
Fitzgerald portrays many of the women in his novel in the form of a flapper, who became the representative symbol of the age. Young women with bobbed hair, favoured straight short dresses, wore make-up, smoked, drank alcohol, drove and generally flouted conventional social and sexual mores. Daisy and Jordan fall into this representative symbol, however Daisy is not as free as what Jordan is. Jordan’s status in the narrative is never quite clear, other than as a foil and in