The Portrayal of Women in The Great Gatsby: Daisy Buchanan, Jordan Baker, and Myrtle Wilson as Representations of the 1920s American Woman

The Portrayal of Women in The Great Gatsby: Daisy Buchanan, Jordan Baker, and Myrtle Wilson as Representations of the 1920s American Woman

In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald presents complex female characters who embody different aspects of the 1920s American woman. Daisy Buchanan, Jordan Baker, and Myrtle Wilson each represent varying social roles and highlight the limited agency women had during the Jazz Age, as well as the changing societal expectations of women in post-World War I America.

Daisy Buchanan, the novel’s central female character, embodies the idealized, yet flawed, image of the American woman of wealth. She is beautiful, charming, and beloved by men, yet her character is defined by a sense of passivity and a lack of independence. Daisy’s role as a wife and mother in the novel is overshadowed by her desire for material comfort and her emotional attachment to Gatsby, though she ultimately chooses the security of her marriage to Tom Buchanan over her past love for Gatsby. Through Daisy, Fitzgerald critiques the superficiality of the American upper class and their shallow pursuits of wealth and status over personal fulfillment.

Jordan Baker represents the “new woman” of the 1920s, a more independent and modern character. As a professional golfer and a woman who flouts traditional gender roles, Jordan epitomizes the evolving image of women in the Roaring Twenties. She is self-assured, sexually liberated, and part of the emerging generation of women pushing against the restrictive boundaries of the past. However, her involvement in the novel’s events—her relationship with Nick Carraway, her dishonesty, and her opportunism—demonstrates the moral ambiguity that comes with this new form of female independence.

Myrtle Wilson, on the other hand, represents the struggles of women from the lower classes, particularly in their pursuit of social mobility. Myrtle’s affair with Tom Buchanan is driven by her desire to escape her working-class existence and achieve the luxury and privilege that Tom represents. Her tragic end, however, reveals the dangers of aspiring to a higher class through means that are ultimately shallow and fleeting. Myrtle’s death underscores the novel’s critique of social stratification and the illusory nature of upward mobility in the world Fitzgerald presents.

Through these women, The Great Gatsby critiques the roles women were expected to play during the Jazz Age, while also exposing the complexities of their desires, ambitions, and disappointments.