Feminist Criticism of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby

Feminist Criticism of The Great Gatsby The pervasive male bias in American literature leads the reader to equate the experience of being American with the experience of being male. In F. Scott Fitzgeralds The Great Gatsby, the background for the experience of disillusionment and betrayal revealed in the novel is the discovery of America. Daisys failure of Gatsby is symbolic of the failure of America to live up to the expectations in the imagination of the men who discovered it. America is female; to be American is male; and the quintessential American experience is betrayal by woman. Fetterley believes that power is the issue in the politics of literature. Powerlessness characterizes womans experience of reading not only because†¦show more content†¦It is she for whom men compete, and possessing her is the clearest sign that one has made it into that magical world. Gatsbys desire for Daisy is enhanced by the fact that she is the object of the desires of many other men. Daisy is the most expensive item on the mark et as Tom points out when he gives her a string of pearls valued at $350,000 on the night before they are married. She is that which money exists to buy. Having her makes Tom Buchanans house in East Egg finished and right; not having her makes Gatsbys mansion in West Egg incomplete and wrong. Daisy is viewed as a possession rather than a person. There are no emotional relations between Gatsby and Daisy to give an account of; there is only an emotional relation between Gatsby and his unutterable visions, of which she is the unwitting symbol. Not only are women treated as inanimate objects in The Great Gatsby, they are also shown as childlike and without morality, whereas it is actually the men who have these characteristics. One can see this in the way that Nick Carraway treats Daisy and Jordan. Nick conceals the fact that Daisy was the driver of the car that killed Myrtle Wilson, supposedly because of his loyalty to Gatsby. But his deceit derives not simply from his loyalty to the dead Gatsby; it is equally the product of his assumption that women, rich women in particular, are incapable of moral responsibility. He even admits to having a different standard of honesty for women than he has forShow MoreRelatedEssay about Paradoxical Role of Women in the Great Gatsby1333 Words   |  6 PagesThe women in The Great Gatsby appear to be free-spirited, scorning norms of what the nineteenth century would have considered proper female behavior; this essay investigates just how independent they really are. Women play a paradoxical role in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, a novel dominated by the eponymous hero and the enigmatic narrator, Nick Carraway. With the background of Gatsby’s continual and lavish parties, women seem to have been transformed into â€Å"flappers,† supposedly the incarnationRead MoreAre Women Destructive Forces?1674 Words   |  7 Pagesworking in the farm. In F. Scott Fitzgeralds book The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald utilized Daisy Buchanan, an ignorant, materialistic and intolerant lady, to portray the materialistic and lost era of the 1920s. When comparing the female figures in the three books, the authors depict the diminishing self-confidence and role of the ladies as the American culture advanced. These classical American works record the shifting role of a woman from when they were an able feminist to when they turned intoRead More Comparing Daisy Buchanan of The Great Gatsby and Brett of The Sun Also Rises2630 Words   |  11 PagesDaisy B uchanan of The Great Gatsby and Brett Ashley of The Sun Also Rises      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Written right after the publication of Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises is apparently influenced in many ways.   The most obvious of Fitzgeralds influence is manifested in Hemingways portrayal of his heroine, Brett Ashley. Numerous critics have noted and discussed the similarities between Brett and Daisy Buchanan, and rightly so; but the two women also have fundamental differences