“the Women Characters Are Merely Decorative Figures of Seemingly Fragile Beauty” – How Far and in What Ways Do You Agree with This View of the Great Gatsby
- Submitted by: sadieliz
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- Category: English: Novels
- Date Submitted: 01/29/2015 08:33 AM
- Pages: 6
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I feel that it depends on the character you are considering when answering this question. All the women in this novel are totally different, unique in fact. For example Daisy and Jordan are different from each other. And Daisy and Myrtle are opposites. Fitzgerald introduces all the women in a negative way. Daisy is weak and careless, Jordan is dishonest and haughty, and Myrtle is unfaithful. From the very beginning Fitzgerald portrays the women in this way. For example Nick describes Jordan as “incurably dishonest”. This introduces the ideology of distrust of women in the novel. In the 1920s men and women weren’t equal. Men could do as they liked but women were stuck doing what the man wanted. For example men could get a divorce and people would support them and blame the woman. On the other hand if a woman wanted a divorce it would be shameful.
Myrtle is Toms ‘other woman’. She is married to George Wilson who lives in the valley of ashes. He is a poor man who runs a garage. He is described as dumb by Tom Buchanan. We know this because he says “he’s so dumb he doesn’t know he’s alive”. We see the classes here. Tom is upper class and treats Wilson (who is lower class) with absolutely no respect. He takes Wilson’s wife and teases him cruelly by offering him an expensive car (which will never happen). Myrtle is shown as sneaky and cruel from the start as shown above. She also doesn’t fit the idea of fragile beauty as she is described as “faintly stout” and a “thickish figure of a woman” which isn’t the most flattering of descriptions for a woman. She is also described as “overly confident”. These descriptions give us the idea that she isn’t the most of appealing women and Tom could have done better. He could have been showing his status choosing Myrtle to show that he can take what he wants from the working class people (Wilson). However in her death we can see a little of her fragile beauty as she is killed in a bid to escape the life she so desperately hated....
Myrtle is Toms ‘other woman’. She is married to George Wilson who lives in the valley of ashes. He is a poor man who runs a garage. He is described as dumb by Tom Buchanan. We know this because he says “he’s so dumb he doesn’t know he’s alive”. We see the classes here. Tom is upper class and treats Wilson (who is lower class) with absolutely no respect. He takes Wilson’s wife and teases him cruelly by offering him an expensive car (which will never happen). Myrtle is shown as sneaky and cruel from the start as shown above. She also doesn’t fit the idea of fragile beauty as she is described as “faintly stout” and a “thickish figure of a woman” which isn’t the most flattering of descriptions for a woman. She is also described as “overly confident”. These descriptions give us the idea that she isn’t the most of appealing women and Tom could have done better. He could have been showing his status choosing Myrtle to show that he can take what he wants from the working class people (Wilson). However in her death we can see a little of her fragile beauty as she is killed in a bid to escape the life she so desperately hated....