Women's Roles In The Great Gatsby

In America during the 1920’s the roles of women were beginning to change, and women were getting more and more independence. This idea of changing women’s roles in society is illustrated throughout the novel, The Great Gatsby. Within the novel two of the main characters, Daisy and Jordan are both shown to represent the different roles women played in society. For example Jordan lives a very independent life while Daisy is almost the opposite in the fact that she has little to no freedom in her societal role. As a result the role of Daisy is portrayed in a negative manor in comparison to the role of Jordan. Ultimately The Great Gatsby helps to illustrate the idea that women’s roles were changing in the 1920’s by portraying both roles within …show more content…
The second role is a role in which women are given more independence. The author again uses multiple different characters to show this particular role. For example Jordan is given this role of independence throughout the novel, and in a contradicting way the author uses Daisy to portray the independent role as well. This depiction of Daisy as an independent women is shown in the novel when Daisy is at Gatsby’s party for the first time and then is offered a drink then after a little drinking she says “never had a drink before, but oh how I do enjoy it” (Fitzgerald 76). This particular quote is important because it shows that Daisy is becoming more independent and breaking the earlier portrayed stereotype that women are no more than objects. This independent role was first introduced during the 1920s and was described in an article titled the roaring twenties as “the flapper: a young woman with bobbed hair and short skirts who drank, smoked and said what might be termed “unladylike” things”(History.com staff page 1). In addition to Daisy being portrayed as “the flapper” Jordan can also be described in this way. This is primarily because unlike the stereotype Jordan is a professional athlete and a very independent person. This can be shown when she is at Gatsby’s party for the first time and says to Nick “Let’s get out…this is much too polite for me” (Fitzgerald 45). This shows that Jordan embodies the emerging role in the 1920s for women that can be described as more independent because she wants to leave the party rather than doing the polite “lady like” thing and staying at the party. This image of Jordan is reflected in an article about the women of the 1920s titled “Flapper Girls” in which the woman of the 1920s are described as “being more