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' Characters: Descriptions and Significance
- 'The Great Gatsby' Overview
- 'The Great Gatsby' Plot Summary
- The Great Gatsby and the Lost Generation
- F. Scott Fitzgerald's Inspiration for 'The Great Gatsby'
- 'The Great Gatsby' Themes
- Critical Overview of "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald
- 'The Great Gatsby' Quotes Explained
- 'The Great Gatsby' Study Questions
- Why Was "The Great Gatsby" Banned?
- What Movie Adaptations Were Made of 'The Great Gatsby'?
- The Lost Generation and the Writers Who Described Their World
- The Life of Zelda Fitzgerald, the Other Fitzgerald Writer
- 49 Unforgettable F. Scott Fitzgerald Quotes
- Top Conservative Novels
- What Is a Foil Character in Literature?
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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
F. scott fitzgerald, ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions, nick carraway, daisy buchanan, jordan baker.
The Great Gatsby Female Characters
Table of Contents
Women portray various characterizations in the book The Great Gatsby. Themes such as materialism, and social classes, among others, indicate the role women play in society as depicted by the author. Daisy Buchanan, Myrtle Wilson, and Jordan Baker are three women with significant authority within their spheres of influence. People have their internal representations of things like goals, imperatives, and requirements. Women characters in The Great Gatsby remain portrayed as materialistic and prone to do anything to get what they want by clinging to powerful and influential men, even if emotionally disrespected. This type of behaviour encourages the readers to question the women characters` morals.
Daisy Buchanan
Daisy wants to marry Tom Buchanan, a wealthy and respectable man. Despite knowing from the beginning that he is disloyal and has several girlfriends, she still wants to marry him. At the same time, Daisy did not love Tom Buchanan because she had fallen in love with another person who was an officer but chose Tom because of his wealth. Her true character is displayed here as Daisy is not in love with the man but ready to stay with him because of his wealth. Daisy feels terrible when she dumps her lover, thus numbing her feelings to suppress her desires.
As a result, she loses a lot due to her love for money when she feels she will marry the wrong guy (Pambudi et al., 2018). Daisy shows a class of women ready to live in toxic relationships because of their desire without thinking about their emotional lives. The author shows through her character how women prefer to use their bodies as instruments of negation while having no emotions for their partners. Daisy is a woman in modern society who believes she would rather be beautiful and stupid but have much wealth. Women’s perspectives are based on their characters and thinking ability, where they tend to be lazy and expect men to work and meet their daily needs.
Daisy believes she would rather have a beautiful and dumb baby because a beautiful woman can deceive a wealthy man by her looks. Through this, women characters are seen to be very desperate, and their perspective changes the narrative on how beautiful they are to capture the attention of a wealthy man. Through the dependence on wealthy men, female characters end up eroding good morals to raise children with the same ideology, thus developing a conflicting society with a lot of greediness and material wealth.
Myrtle Wilson
The book portrays Myrtle Wilson as representing the materialistic nature of women. Myrtle Wilson is the type of woman who is ready to do anything for her to enjoy her own lavish life. Myrtle Wilson represents many women within the society who feel that getting married to a rich man is to be a part of his riches(Gao, 2021). In the story, Myrtle remains depicted as a social climber and a woman who belittles her struggling man and seeks another. The author has shown how women try to fit in by working hard to please society and cling to wealthy male counterparts, thus engaging in unethical activities like cheating on their husbands. This behavior is a disgrace to a society that embraces honesty and loyalty.
Jordan Baker
According to Zeven and Dorst (2021), Jordan is embodied as the new lady of the 1920s, arrogant and pessimistic. Baker remains recognized as a gifted golfer with some distinct manly demeanors. When it comes to her character, she is dishonest, as proven by the fact that she cheated to win her first golf championship. Jordan rejected Nick’s advances since he shared her vices of corruption and depravity. Jordan is one of the main characters because she personifies the prosperous society’s underbelly—specifically, the balance between the comfortable life and the dark inner existence.
According to Pambudi et al. (2018), Jordan Baker had some excellent qualities despite being marked by many false characteristics. A piece of the American dream was Jordan Baker, which served as a prime example of contemporary women who remain independent and self-sufficient. Jordan Baker helps disprove the stereotype that women were weak creatures who required males to support them. First, the fact that she has a highly masculine name like Jordan shows her independence and self-sufficiency. She has been described as tough and small-breasted because she was often referred to as a young cadet, thus demonstrating her independence. Jordan Baker is also portrayed as incredibly self-sufficient because she is a golfer, and being a golfer was not a popular sport among women in her era or earlier. Nonetheless, Jordan has a careless attitude because of her drinking habits, where she engages in smoking and promiscuity activities even if she feels compelled by these activities.
Pambudi et al. (2018) depict the recklessness of many people during the Jazz Age, portrayed through Jordan Baker, who is often lazy, dishonest, and blunt. Tom Buchanan often remarked to Jordan how he wondered if she got anything done. Jordan Baker is a corrupt woman in society who bribes for gain or to turn things upside down. She ended up engaging in cheating activities when she won the Golf competition. Nonetheless, she is a rumor monger since she ends up freely sharing her thoughts and telling Nick about Tom’s mistress.
Every female character in this book shows how the women in society try to fit in to benefit themselves. After amassing a sizeable wealth for themselves, characters like Jordan no longer depend on Nick for monetary support. The culture of those days has shown how women have been using their beauty to exploit wealthy men from whom they want monetary benefits. Women characters downgraded their personalities to live wealthy lives by always believing they must be beautiful to have a wealthy man. The only way for a man to chill down and enjoy life is to have a woman who is both stunning and easily fooled.
- Gao, Y. (2021). A Feminist Approach to The Great Gatsby. International Journal of Frontiers in Sociology , 3 (6).
- Pambudi, H. A. R., Sembiring, B., & Damayanti, I. (2018). The Portrayal of Women in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald and Its Relationship to Indonesian Women On Education. Journal of English Education and Teaching , 2 (4), 48-67.
- Zeven, K., & Dorst, A. G. (2021). A beautiful little fool? Retranslating Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsby. Perspectives , 29 (5), 661-675.
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Home / Essay Samples / Literature / The Great Gatsby / “The Great Gatsby” Female Characters Analysis
"The Great Gatsby" Female Characters Analysis
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