Essay On Women In The Great Gatsby

Words: 1034
Pages: 5

At the beginning of the 1920s, women were legally allowed to vote in the United States and this new found voice precipitated a “new woman”. They began to break the rules and conventions guiding their stereotypical roles of the time. Women began wearing shorter skirts and, cutting off hair into the shorter, “boyish bob”. F. Scott Fitzgerald demonstrates the effects of these changes in women in his novel, The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald’s “new woman” is symbolized through the female characters of Jordan Baker, Myrtle Wilson, and Daisy Buchanan. Each woman displays different ways of interacting with men and different motivations for these interactions, but the constant among the women is that they are able to control the men in their lives because …show more content…
Daisy is married to Tom and she is cousins with Nick. The way that Daisy is described by Nick is more in depth than the other two women and Nick constantly uses the word “bright” when describing her, “Her face was sad and lovely with bright things in it, bright eyes and a bright passionate mouth,” (Fitzgerald, 9). Nick describes Daisy as if she is the best person in the world and it is clear that he truly cares for her. Daisy is able to use her charm and good looks to provide for her and daughter. When Daisy talks to people she talks softly so that people lean in closer to her to hear what she is saying and this helps her with being desired by people, “Daisy’s murmur was only to make people lean toward her; an irrelevant criticism that made it no less charming,” (Fitzgerald 9). Daisy was able to use her charms to woo Tom into marrying her. Daisy uses Tom to help her live the life that she wants and admits to never even loving him in the first place, “‘I never loved him,’ she said, with perceptible reluctance,” (Fitzgerald, 132). She not only is able to break the heart of Tom, but also break the heart of Jay Gatsby in the end. It is clear that Daisy uses her looks and her very vibrant personality to earn the love of men who will provide for her and help to live out her selfish desire of having