Literary works are often influenced by the ideology of the author’s times. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby was published in 1925, amidst the Roaring Twenties, which he referred to as the “Jazz Age,” a time of massive economic prosperity and cultural shift before World War I. During World War I, men were sent overseas for battle, leaving their families and jobs, which made their wives take over the jobs. Women entered the job roles that men once occupied, giving them the first chance at a workplace. They started living for themselves as opposed to relying on men. Two years after the war when American women won suffrage, it integrated the position of women as equal to men. They became free-spirited, as they could be seen smoking and drinking in the company of men. In other words, the “New Women” emerged in the 1920s, which brought along a lot of unpleasant sentiments from the conservative members of the society, both male and female, who compare the departure of the traditional woman with the moral decay of the society.
With all these changes taking place in the lives of American women, they were beginning to be called “flappers,” who abandoned the traditional Victorian-era values of their predecessors. Known for their distinct appearance and manner of dress, they wore straight loose-fitting dresses with bare arms and low necklines, where the dress usually reached to the knees. A large amount of jewelry, such as beaded necklaces, pins, rings, and brooches was also part of the flapper costume. They cut their hair short, which was known as the bobbed cut. The relatively open dresses of women allowed them to perform new dance steps, occasionally allowing a glimpse of their bare knees which was considered controversial even a decade before the 1920s. The flappers engaged themselves in activities such as riding bicycles, driving vehicles, listening to jazz music, smoking cigarettes, and drinking alcohol which was not considered ladylike. A large number of people were against the lifestyle women were adapting and considered it reckless.
Cultural change plays an important role in The Great Gatsby. In the novel, the character Daisy Buchanan is probably one of the most despised characters in literature for the way she was shown to abandon Gatsby as soon as she realized that he was a man belonging to the group of young money, people who have become newly rich because of corrupt practices. She returned to Tom who provided her with the umbrella of money and power, as he belonged to the class of old money, possessing inherited wealth from predecessors. Despite being a “new woman” adopting the new way of living, she does not seem to think highly of women in general, as she feels women can only be beautiful and stupid and there is no place for intelligence in them. Even though from Daisy’s view, this might seem to be a recognition of the condition of women in the world, she does nothing to change it and her action later on implies that.
After her marriage to Tom, Daisy soon found out her husband was unfaithful to her. She was helpless and could not think of anything she could do, because she did not want to let go of her lifestyle. Gatsby came back to her lifestyle while she despised her married life. By that time Gatsby had become immensely wealthy by bootlegging, which was illegal, and intended to pursue Daisy again as if she was a commodity. In turn, Daisy too became unfaithful to her husband and began spending time with Gatsby, as she was starstruck seeing Gatsby’s lavish mansion and piles of silk shirts. She was mesmerized to the level that she began crying as she had never seen such beautiful shirts before, which speaks volumes of her material desire. The characterization of Daisy by Fitzgerald is extremely complex and reflects his own perspective of women in general.
Another important character in this novel is Myrtle Wilson, the wife of George Wilson, who is characterized as a degenerate woman. Being from the lower strata of society, as she was the wife of a mechanic, her dream was to lead a luxurious life like a noblewoman. She depended on Tom Buchanan for fulfilling her desires, but Tom simply played with her emotions. Her wishful thinking ended abruptly with her tragic death.
She was extremely curious to know about the upper society which she tried to gain from films and tabloids. Like Daisy, she was also determined to marry a nobleman, which she unfortunately could not. That is why she was involved in an unfaithful relationship with Tom Buchanan, and using his wealth, Myrtle fulfilled her desires. To imitate noblewomen, she spent a lot of money on purchasing dog collars, ashtrays and other trivial stuff. In those days, carrying a pet dog was deemed to be something aristocratic. Thus, she had the desire to have one. She changed three sets of clothes in a day and when she did that, her personality drastically changed, behaving more like a woman from the upper class, herself being from the lower strata of society.
Once in an apartment, Tom beat Myrtle in her face and broke her nose. This was because Myrtle took the name of Daisy, and according to Tom, Myrtle’s background is so humble, she did not even have the right to mention her name. Yet, Myrtle wanted to meet Tom even after that incident because she was engrossed in the lifestyle to which Tom made her habituated . She was so blinded by the superficial privileges of the material society that despite understanding that she was being used as an accessory of men, she let herself become the victim of the patriarchal culture.
Jordan Baker was the third important female character in the novel. She was a woman of beauty and loveliness in the eyes of the narrator Nick Carraway when they first met. Not only that, she revealed herself to be cool and arrogant which to Nick was inconsistent compared to her age and career. Her erogenous character was oddly desirable to Nick. Gradually her multidimensional personality was revealed.
She was a golf player, which was something uncommon at that time, being a female golf player in a game predominantly played by men. However, at her first big tournament, she cheated her way through the semifinals. While remembering the incident of how Jordan cheated and lied about it, Nick exclusively claims that honesty is something only associated with men. In some way or the other, all the women in The Great Gatsby have been presented as unfaithful or dishonest and it is the men who, in spite of their unfaithfulness or involvement in illegal activities are not presented as hateful.
Despite the wave of change in the women of the 1920s, The Great Gatsby exhibits women to be powerless. The shortcomings the women possessed were the reason for various conflicts in the novel. Despite the progress women made at that time, equality was something men were not ready to accept and time and time again women have been victimised by the phallocentric mindset of men, which prohibits them to be considered equal to women, as it was seen in the novel The Great Gatsby.
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Writer:
Risalat Rahman Hridoy
Intern, Content Writing Department
YSSE