Outline

Prescribed Question: How and why is a social group represented in a particular way?
Title of the text for analysis: ‘The Great Gatsby’ by F. Scott Fitzgerald
This task refers to Part 3: Literature – Texts and Contexts
This critical response paper will:
1. Explore the impact that setting had on the nature of elite women in The Great Gatsby.
Explain to what extent this is an accurate portrayal of women of the era.
2. Comment on Daisy’s and, to a lesser extent, Jordan’s and Myrtle’s character in the story
as well as how they influenced the story’s plot.
3. Comment on Fitzgerald’s objectification of wealthy women and the influence that
Fitzgerald’s relationships have had on this portrayal.
4. Conclude by discussing how the nature of women has always been misconstrued and
overgeneralized by representation in literature.
Word Count: 137
Written Task
The Great Gatsby is a timeless classic that chronicles the masked cynicism of the 1920’s
American Dream, the evolution of love and the effect that the prohibition era had on the
dynamics of the social schema. However, the most developed theme in The Great Gatsby would
be that of social stratification and the influence that the desire for status has on the path that one
had chosen to follow during the Roaring Twenties. The book follows Nick Carraway as he
narrates his experience with Jay Gatsby, an elusive bachelor who is pursuing a forbidden
relationship with his long-lost lover, Daisy Buchanan as they reside in a fictional New York that
is plagued by bootlegged alcohol, new money and secrets. Daisy Buchanan is considered a
product of her time; an overly simplistic portrayal of socialites in an era divided by tradition and
progression, but she is not the only woman is shown to have been jaded by the beauty of wealth
within the book. This essay will discuss the overall segregation and misinterpretation of rich
women in modern literature, them being helpless yet still threatening.
Daisy was a woman groomed to turn away from her own ambitions to become “a
beautiful little fool” (Fitzgerald 23) that would marry to maintain the privilege that she had
become accustomed to within a glittering yet treacherous high society. At the end of the book,
she is shown to naïve and selfish when she undermines the love that both men hold for her,
seemingly more in love with what their adoration for her had to offer rather than the men
themselves. She states “‘you want too much!’ she cried to Gatsby. ‘I love you now, isn’t that
enough? …I did love [Tom] once – but I loved you too.” (Fitzgerald 119). Daisy had always
been aware of both of their affection but, rather than choosing a side, she maintains that she
cannot definitively choose either and maintains an aloofness in order to ignore discussing what
she really wants. Fitzgerald had written Daisy to be presented in a desirable way but beyond her
appearance, her personality is flawed indicating that one could only romanticize her by what
could be seen on the surface and upon further inspection, she is but a simple, selfish and
confused character. Fitzgerald’s own view of women, based on his descriptions and his writing
of their actions, he fails to add any complexity to her character as he does with Gatsby and
makes her out to be a confused debutant instead.
 Regardless of their intentionally juxtaposing personalities, there are certain characteristics
shared between Daisy Buchanan and Myrtle Wilson in their quest for happiness and wealth in a
male-dominated social system. The desire for luxury is what lured women like them to Tom
Buchanan in the first place. Myrtle had rejected the working-class George Wilson’s love in
exchange for an abusive affair that offered her materialistic things like fancy clothing and
experiences. Myrtle had stated that “[George Wilson] borrowed somebody’s suit to get married
in” (Fitzgerald 37) in a way that staunchly highlights her materialism and her misconstrued idea
of love being shiny and glimmering is what leads to her death in the end.
Jordan is another woman made out to be a selfish and manipulative character whose
success was founded upon lies and cheating. She is meant to have been a direct foil to Daisy
because of her “new woman” nature who favours pragmatism over Daisy’s idealism but is,
regardless, still written to be a social climber in every aspect. She attends Gatsby’s parties among
other glitterati and indulges in casual sex, alcohol and a flapper aesthetic.
Daisy becomes the ultimate dream for men like Tom Buchanan who, regardless of his
affairs, had come to depend on Daisy’s blind faith and Jay Gatsby, who saw her as the symbol of
wealth, beauty and success. According to Nick, Daisy’s voice “was full of money- that was the
inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it” (Fitzgerald 120) and she was the prime example of
what money could buy. It can be noted that, rather than focus on what she was saying, one was
meant to focus on how she was saying it, her words being irrelevant to what is meant to be an
image of superficial beauty. Fitzgerald’s perception of women can be credited to his own
encounters with women of the Jazz Age, namely with Ginevra King who has long been
considered the inspiration for moneyed Daisy. Much like King, Daisy had left the poor soldier
for the rich man who had been born into money and had endured a lost love in exchange for a
debutant status and had become the ultimate downfall for the men around her. Ironically, unlike
Fitzgerald, Daisy had returned to Gatsby who had still seen her as an object and his desperation
to have her to complete his dream would become his downfall in the end when she is unable to
admit that she had never loved Tom. In The Great Gatsby, Daisy’s life is completely defined by
her relationship with men and the whole book is influenced by the pursuit of the perfect image
that she was able to provide.
Frances Kerr has stated that “to be feminine in The Great Gatsby is to be either
emotionally weak… or lavishly sentimental and tasteless,” and this can all be attributed to
Fitzgerald’s experiences with rich women who he viewed as all being of the same nature:
uncaring and emotionally detrimental. Women like Daisy, Jordan, Myrtle and even minor female
characters are written to all be rich women who are sought after but also strive to ruin the lives of
the men around them. This idea is not unfamiliar in the literary world and according to
Fitzgerald, despite their allure, there are inherent flaws with upper-class women of this time and
within materialistic societies going so far as to characterize them as carefree creatures that
destroy the hopes and dreams of men thereby asking to be dominated.
Word Count: 999