Myrtle Wilson, Tom’s mistress is an unhappy woman who wants desperately to raise her social status, she thinks she can achieve this by being with Tom, and this is the main reason she is with him, he has money. Tom manipulates her easily, and she tolerates his verbal and physical abuse, ”Tom Buchanan broke her nose with his open hand” pg 35 just for the thought that she will be better seen by others if she is with him. She is the perfect example of how men constantly use women without them realizing they are being used. Jordan Baker is only interested on achieving what people expect from her, and in protecting the image that she is supposed to have. She is not portrayed as naïve or unintelligent, but with a rather strong personality, and careless manners, but despite this she has an unimportant role in the story.
These three women, have very stereotypical characters, not too complex personalities, and defined characteristics. They are very different from each other but at the same time they share 3 main characteristics that can bee seen throughout the book The first one is materialism, Jordan, Daisy and Myrtle all care too much about their image on society, their material possessions, and are not true to their own feelings, they have an idea of how they should behave, and even think, and they try to stick loyal to this idea they have created of themselves. If we take Daisy as an example, she talks about her daughter and says” I’m glad she’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 fool” pg 18, she has this idea about what women should be, and she has no desire to change this.
Carelessness is another characteristic; these women don’t seem to care about other people’s feelings, just for themselves. When Jordan tells Nick that she’s engaged to another man, she is really cold, never explains him why, or even tries to make this sound better. Daisy hangs out with Gatsby and she tells him she him loves, making him think she is prepared to leave everything behind just for him, when she knows she will not have the courage to do it, despite this she keeps giving reasons for Gatsby to think she will, but she never stops to think that what she’s doing will hurt Gatsby a lot.
The last characteristic is dishonesty, that links in many ways to unfaithfulness and disloyalty. They are all unfaithful to their ideas as well to other people. Daisy is unfaithful to Tom, because she is with Gatsby, but at the same time she is being dishonest to Gatsby by making him believe that she will leave Tom. Myrtle’s is disloyalty is reflected from the beginning by being with Tom, here she is being dishonest to her husband George, because even if she doesn’t love him, they are still married, and as long as this bond exists, she should respect it, or have the courage to leave him. Jordan Baker is regularly dishonest to other people, she is a golf champion, but she cheats all the time, regardless of this, she is proud of herself, and does not feel guilty at all.
In “The Great Gatsby”, women are not described deeply, when their description is given the author appeals to their voice, their looks and the way they act rather than to their feelings or emotions. By giving such superficial information about them the reader gets the idea that they are foolish, and not too bright. Neither of them has a really important role in the plot, or is fundamental in crucial times of the story. They don’t participate with ideas. Daisy is Gatsby’s dream, for all he lives and she is portrayed as an “unreachable jewel” almost as an object, something that does not exist, and will never be reached. Definitely women have a secondary role in the book, the narrator is a man, important phrases are said by a man, and It’s men who are described deeply, the whole story spins around them. In the 1930’s it was a common idea to think women had a secondary l role in life, maybe F. Scott Fitzgerald had this ideology, or he was trying to reflect society as accurately as possible, and for this reason he put women on a second plan.
