Jacqueline Morgan
3rd Period
June 17, 2013
The Great Gatsby Essay In the novel, The Great Gatsby, the author, F. Scott Fitzgerald, put a great emphasis on the role women played in that era. Fitzgerald particularly contrasted Myrtle Wilson and Daisy Buchanan’s characters. On the whole, Fitzgerald characterized the women in this novel as women who were dependent on the male figures in their lives. Minor females in the novel like Jordan Baker and the partygoers are portrayed as the “it” girls and they have their own rules that they adhere to.
Myrtle Wilson, the wife of George Wilson, and Daisy Buchanan, wife of Tom Buchanan, has characteristics that differ from each other vastly. As described in Chapter 2, Myrtle, “was in the middle thirties, and faintly stout.” While, as described in Chapter 1, Daisy was a young and dainty woman in comparison to Myrtle. Another example of how these two women differ is personality-wise as opposed to physical appearances. Myrtle was a woman who did what she wanted regardless of what women were supposed to do during that time period. Myrtle was a smoker, drinker, and an adulterer. She was a triple defiance to the status quo. Daisy, however, was the typical wife. She was sweet and innocent and played her role as a wife well. So, it is clear how Daisy and Myrtle were two opposites.
Throughout the novel, Fitzgerald showed the reader the characters of women who were dependent on the male figures in their live. The women in the novel have been “trained’’ to need males. For example, the partygoers that are women aren’t aware of it but they depend on Gatsby. They depend on him to throw his fancy parties and depend on him to have his nice house. These women are babies that need