Representation Of Women In The Great Gatsby

American icon, Marilyn Monroe, once said, “Well behaved women rarely make history.” This was especially true when the roles of women were beginning to stray from the norm with the initiation of the Jazz Age in the twenties. In 1920, women were given the right to vote, they began to work, and Flappers smoked, drank, and danced. In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald utilizes the characters of Daisy Buchanan, Jordan Baker, and Myrtle Wilson to exhibit characteristic traits of women in the 1920s.
Portrayed as the stereotypical housewife, Daisy Buchanan is married of Tom, is the cousin of Nick, and is the love interest of Gatsby. Daisy leaves Gatsby who goes to fight in the war to marry Tom who will be able to provide her a life of wealth and …show more content…
Flappers were young women during the twenties who deviated from the typical representation of what a woman was supposed to act like: wearing short skirts, cutting their hair, smoking, drinking, and enjoying the freedom that came with this lifestyle. In a majority of the story, Nick and Jordan are seeing each other after he breaks up with, “that certain girl [who] played tennis,” back in Chicago (169). One day, as Jordan is recklessly driving, the two get into an argument specifically about her carelessness, and Nick finds himself falling in love with her. This carelessness stems from her flapper personality. Eventually, Nick finds that Jordan is not trustworthy and he breaks up with her because of this. As he is narrating, Nick reveals that he believes that, “Dishonesty in a woman is something you never blame deeply,” further validating his reasoning for ending their relationship (58). Jordan is a character that can be found at almost every one of Jay Gatsby’s extravagant parties, and at these parties Jordan is illustrated dancing, drinking, and gossiping. These traits, and her rash behavior in certain situations, all classify her as a flapper of the early …show more content…
She is the mistress of Tom Buchanan, the wife of George Wilson, a perpetrator many times over of living a hedonistic, self indulgent lifestyle. Myrtle and her husband rest in the lower-class where they have an abusive relationship. Throughout the novel, Myrtle is searching for ways to improve her life, which consists of living in a car garage that her George owns and cheating on him for materialistic reasons. Unfortunately, she cheats on her husband with Tom Buchanan, husband of Daisy, who, “treats her as a mere object of his desire”(Strba). Myrtle is described as having social aspirations and a smoldering vitality, but she is snobby and not overwhelmingly attractive, nor is she very bright. She encompasses the character of a social climber, both in the twenties and in modern day. She explains to her friends that, “He [Wilson] borrowed somebody's best suit to get married in and never even told [her] about it,” and that when she found out about this, she, “lay down and cried” (35). This interaction with Myrtle uncovers that she is unsatisfied with her husband, but would most likely be happier if he were