Modernism and Representation of Female Characters in The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) is a classic novel that exemplified Modernism; the rejection of literary conventions of the 19th century and oppositional to conventional Morality, Taste, Tradition, and Economic values. It tells the story of Jay Gatsby’s pursuit of The American Dream; His lifelong quest is to reunite with his lost love Daisy Buchanan. He reinvented a new identity, from a poor man to one of a great wealth and power. Despite all his efforts and how much wealthy he becomes, and how far he tries to be recognized to win Daisy’s heart. He finds that he never been good enough for her.

This paper will focus attention on the position of women in The Great Gatsby. The latter contains many characters whom appear to be larger-than-life; seeking for money and authority living the American Dream in the Jazz Age of the 1920s. The 1920s was a notable period in the history of women, in this period females distanced themselves from more traditional values, Nevertheless, in the plot, the readers don’t hear from the female characters themselves instead, they primarily learn about the women from how they are described by the two main male characters, Jay Gatsby and Nick Carraway.

There is no dispute that the 1920s was an era where women finally found their way to become more independent and liberated. Fitzgerald portrays females as subjects, prizes to be won by men the controllers. In fact, the novel has shown women in a bad way. They were unfaithful. Their existence revolve around money, power, and authority… they were created to please men. Women were dependent on men, they were helpless and superficial since they could not have their own thoughts, and they could not pursue their dreams as men. The female characters of the novel are the examples of many females of the era; they show the stereotype of the era.

In The Great Gatsby women were considered weak. There was no relative equality between women and men. Their role was negative; they were abused by men and society. They were forced to obey men.

The women’s obsession with equality has let them to one of the serious freedom misconception of all time. In their research for freedom, they have opened a door of abusiveness, They pave the ground for men to exploit the new version of them.

F.Scott Fitzgerald, the great quintessential writer, the doctrine of his group. The spokesman of what Gertrude Stein named “lost Generation”. He epitomizes in his art and creative integrity the whole movement, and represents the quintessence of the new cult. His work centered around his research for a new aesthetic.

The period between the World war one and the World War two is generally called the Modern or the Modernist Period. This does not mean that literature is necessarily ‘modern’ by the present time’s standards.

The term modernism refers to the radical shift in aesthetic and cultural sensibilities evident in the art and literature of the post-World War period. Modernism masks a distinctive break with Victorian bourgeois morality; rejecting 19th century optimism, modern writers presented a profoundly pessimistic picture of a culture in disarray. Their despair of the results in an apparent apathy and moral relativism. Most writers felt caught up in a sweeping movement that led to a rejection of parochialism and pushed to a generalized “Revolution of the Word”. They sought a radical utopia with anarchistic overtones.

The great shock of the World War and the religious decline and the loss of faith, among other factors, gave of to many authors failing that their world lacked meaning, and the glitz of the Jazz Age was only a façade for emptiness and despair. This is particularly visible in the work of F.Scott Fitzgerald.

The Great Gatsby tells the story of Nick Caraway, an upper class American man who moves to New York City from the Midwest to make his fortune in the bond track. Nick attends his mysterious wealthy neighbor Jay Gatsby’s parties in which he was amazed by all the wealth and the flash. The latter becomes a close friend to Nick. He exploits this relationship to bring back his lost love, Nick’s cousin Daisy Buchanan.

The protagonist, Jay Gatsby, whom seems to be involved in some questionable behaviors, was throwing fancy parties, showing off his wealth to meet Daisy who appears to be in love with him. Tom Buchanan her husband discovers Gatsby’s affair and they both battle over days; however, Gatsby’s dream can’t be achieved since Daisy’s heart chooses Tom.

Tom has a mistress, Myrtle Wilson who was killed by Gatsby’s car. Tom seizes this opportunity and sets up Gatsby’s by telling the mistress husband George Wilson that Gatsby is responsible for murders death. Wilson the garage owner targets Gatsby’s house where he kills Gatsby and ends his own life.

At the end Nick was shocked that the handful of people who used to attend Gatsby’s parties none of them comes to his funeral. To that end Nick returns home to the west.

The Great Gatsby was set in 1920s soon after the end of World War One. The Roaring Twenties or, as Fitzgerald called it the Jazz Age, is a time of tremendous social changes in American, especially in the era of women’s rights. The roaring time; is the time when women were finally given the right to vote.

Before the war, women used to wear long skirts, high button shoes. A few years after the war, skirts became shorter, modern footwear replaced boots, and bobbed hair became popular among young women. Women’s behaviors began to take another path. Women finally could be seen smoking and drinking, often in the company of men. They could go to the nightclubs, private parties. They change their way of dancing. In fact, a new women era emerged in the 1920s, it brought along with it negative sentiments from conservative members of society, both male and female, who equated the disappearance of the traditional woman with the moral decline of society.

Literary works often reflect the ideological conflicts of their culture, whether or not it is their intention to do so since if we like it or not, writers are influenced by their ideology of their times. Thus even the fact that F.Scott Fitzgerald was married to a new woman himself, The Great Gatsby embodies the cultural discomfort with Post-World War One new woman.

We can touch this fact in the novel’s characterization of Daisy Buchanan, Jordan Baker and Myrtle Wilson, who are different, but they are all versions of the new women. Their way of dressing, and their modern hair. They do not feel a need to behave modestly, and all the three display modern independence. Only Daisy and Jordan are married however they do not keep their marital unhappiness a secret.

Jordan has a career of her own in the male dominated field of golf. They all prefer the excitement of the nightlife to their domestic duties. There is only one child, and Daisy’s life does not revolve around her maternal role. Finally, all the women violate patriarchal taboos, especially in the way Daisy and Myrtle are both involved in extramarital affairs.

The novel finds this freedom unacceptable in women, as is made clear in the unsympathetic portrayal and punishment of all three women. Daisy Buchanan is characterized as a spoiled brat and a killer. She believes that females should be like that. “I’m glad it is a girl. And I hope she will be a fool. That is the best thing a girl can be in this world, as a beautiful little fool”.

Although Myrtle’s death is accidental, Daisy does not stop the car and try to help the injured Myrtle instead she speeds off and lets Gatsby takes the blame.

Once she knows that Gatsby was not always rich, she retreats behind the protection of Tom’s wealth and power abandoning Gatsby to his own fate. Thus on top of her all sins, she is phony.

Jordan Baker is characterized as a liar a cheater. Nick catches her lying about having left a borrowed car out in the rain with top down, and she was caught cheating during a golf tournament. Both she and Daisy exhibit a lack of concern for others, and her physical description is very masculine, underscoring the message to inhibit a male world Jordan must look like a boy.

Myrtle Wilson is someone who is loud, obnoxious, and phony, she cheats on George who was devoted to her, and she bullies and humiliates him as well. Her interest in Tom is clearly superficial. She was attracted to his expensive clothes. She wants him to marry her in order to move out of her garage apartment.

The three women are punished in the plot of the novel; Daisy got stuck in a loveless marriage with Tom, a seemingly just punishment for her crimes, given that Tom is going to continue to be unfaithful to her.

Jordan is punished when Nick abandons her. The worst, however, is reserved for the woman who threatened the patriarchy the most Myrtle Wilson. She violates patriarchy gender roles unabashedly and aggressively, despite the fact that she is from the lower rungs of society.

Her husband all but disappears in her presence. She suffers abuse at Tom’s hand for stepping out of bounds. her ultimate punishment is that she is hit by Gatsby’s car and killed. Thus although her sins are less serve than Daisy or Jordan in the way that she hurts other people, she is punished the most severely. Obviously the novel finds aggressiveness the most unattractive and unforgivable quality a woman can have.

In his book Freud, religion, and the Roaring twenties Henry Oedema explained how the 1920s was a time were people shifted away from the religious traditions and towards affluence and materialism. That is not surprising since the 1920s was a time of a massive wealth. The roles of women have changed men are still somehow the same. However, both genders and the society as a whole have embraced influence and materialism. Scott shows that women like wealthy men, throughout the story Gatsby knows how to get Daisy he uses his power and wealth to get her, his plans to get her fall in love with him partly worked. Female catchers of The Great Gatsby have been suffering from the darkness of abusiveness which has impacted their life.

There is no question that The Great Gatsby is a masterpiece of American literature. It is failed with symbols and beautiful, descriptive passages; it shows the readers the characters moral emptiness, selfishness, and discrimination. With the creation of Nick Garraway Fitzgerald obtained more than objectivity and conservation of events, Nick describes more than he witnesses; he describes the act and consequences of telling about it, he is a character engaged in a significant action. Nick is writing a book. He is recording Gatsby’s experience, he discovers himself.

It is obvious that all the female characters were created to emphasize the author’s vision about the new era. There is no doubt that The Great Gatsby is one of the greatest novels of all time, however, the reader could not fully fathom the text without knowing the authors point of view; it is clear that Fitzgerald is discomfort with the New Woman, which is responsible for its disapproving characterizations and category treatment of female in The Great Gatsby. After analyzing the novel, we can realize that Fitzgerald hates the revolution of women; he does not like the new woman, the one with the new positions and authorities. The reader can easily consider The Great Gatsby as a metaphor of women in particular and modern society in general.

F.Scott Fitzgerald gives a negative expiation to his female’s characters; he follows the social norms in his narration. He describes the male characters as diligent, however, women in the novel were nothing but objects, they were totally dependent on men. The image of the 1920s women is like the following; she is the one who seeks for rich men, she is a prostitute, greedy, and stupid.

Even the fact that women in The Jazz Age have won many things such as their right of voting, and the freedom to do whatever they want, however, the novel shows the opposite it shows that those women cannot be independent, and they will be always dependent on men since they are superficial, they care about nothing, but their image in society which has a direct relation with men, Women are in men’s hand.

The Great Gatsby is a love story, but it impossible to ignore the fact that it contains a handful stereotypes about women, the author has emphasized on the negative role of females, in one hand, he shows them as unfaithful and untrusty. In the other hand men were described as greatest, trustworthy… they are the suitable to take authorities and power. In the novel men make decisions not women.

The Great Gatsby is the first truly Modernist novel to find success in the United States; it sets the tone for the movement that defined American literature well into the present day. In Modernism, F.Scott Fitzgerald found his path to define the world that would have been impossible in 119th century Victorian style that still dominated American writing. In his style, portrayal of American morality and treatment of his characters, Fitzgerald left the Victorian era behind, creating Modernist masterwork.