TO WHAT EXTENT DO YOU CONSIDER THE TREATMENT OF WOMEN IN ‘THE GREAT GATSBY’ TO BE MISOGYNICTIC.
During the 1920s America was a country of great ambition, despair and disappointment. The Great Gatsby is a reflection of this decade, it illustrates the burning passion one man has towards his ‘American Dream’. In the 1920’s the spirit and ambition of the American people soared. Unlike their European counterparts who were trapped in the social class to which they were born, the American people knew that if they worked hard they too could rise to a higher social class. The spirit and ambition of women especially soared, and Fitzgerald is best known as the man who “more than any other, Identified, delineated and popularised the female representative of that era, the flapper. It is evident that there is misogyny towards the women in The Great Gatsby. This is perhaps because the men especially felt threatened with the females expression of their newly discovered social freedom. From the 1890s into the 1920s there was a rise in women’s public power-“a feminisation of the American culture.”. As well as detailing to social scene of the roaring 1900s, by his misogynistic treatment of women, Fitzgerald reveals the concern that men had of the women who abandoned their traditional submissive gender roles.
Daisy “cried ecstatically”. Edwardian women were meant to be seen and not heard. They were meant to embody the qualities of purity and submissiveness. Daisy clearly does not fit this mould of the ‘ideal housewife’. Fitzgerald portrays Daisy quest for attention and the word ecstatically demonstrates her character. Daisy is liberated and through her Fitzgerald presents a modern young woman. One who “was spoiled, sexually liberated, self centred, fun-loving and magnetic”. Fitzgerald was clearly highlighting the changing distribution of power between the sexes. The name Daisy was carefully chosen by Fitzgerald to symbolise her temperament. Initially the reader is welcomed to view Daisy as a delicate person and the colour white associated with a daisy seeks to suggest innocence. However its irony only emphasises the rigid social view of women at the time and the naivety of men in accepting women as “sexually liberated, self centred, fun-loving and magnetic”. Fitzgerald uses words such as “milk of wonder” and Daisy’s white face” to provide a sense of innocence and purity and also to illuminate the use of colours in the novel. The colour white is associated with Daisy as is depicts her virtuousness. The vivid description builds up a buoyant and thus far dramatic atmosphere when ironically Gatsby’s dream is slowly ripped apart. Daisy is oblivious to the fact that she is everything to Gatsby.
