The Great Gatsby Women

Women in the time period of Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) and The Great Gatsby (1925) were viewed as fairly weak and frail. They were entitled to staying at home, cooking, cleaning, taking care of the children, etc. However, this view of women having a role under men was making a radical change. Women began to challenge and test the government and the overall society they lived in. This upset the men because this movement displayed that they were slowly losing their dominance and supremacy over the female society. The two main characters in The Great Gatsby, Daisy and Jordan illustrate this change of emergence of giving women more power and a stronger voice. Both of these characters depict the diverse and significant characteristics of …show more content…
On page 17 Daisy mentions about her daughter, “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 fool.” (Fitzgerald 17) This quote shows and embodies the obvious thematic cornerstone of the novel, which is the typical and subordinate role for women in the Roaring Twenties. Daisy has a damaged ambition inside her, as she feels personally victimized by her own society. Overall, she feels defeated by her own world. However, this quote suggests that Daisy is significantly aware of her feministic views and is mindful of the place femininity holds in the historical context of the early 1900s. Daisy may seem like the superficial woman whom is dominated by a man, it should not be disregarded of her characters potential wisdom. As Daisy seemed like the typical wife to sit on the sidelines and watch, being under the wing and control of a man that was not the case. It was quite common for a man to be unfaithful to their spouses but it was unheard of for a woman to be, but Daisy rebelled against that theory and had an affair with Gatsby. Also, Daisy even drove Gatsby’s car, which driving was typically the mans job to …show more content…
During her journey she searches for the fulfillment from a meaningful relationship bounded with love. She also hopes to achieve self-knowledge of what it truly means to be a woman in a dominated male society. Janie’s very first realization concerning marriage is that it does not whatsoever “compel love like the sun day” (Hurston 21). Her Nanny is a woman who knows and lived through the social obstacles that a woman has to endure such as financial stability and merely wants Janie to be able to enjoy the luxuries of refraining from work due to a husband. She forced Janie to be married to a man that she never loved exposes the expectation that women are expected to depend on men for financial security and