gender roles
In The Great Gatsby Fitzgerald writes about gender roles in a sort of conservative way. Through this novel, the men work to earn money for the women to spend on themselves. Men are very dominant over women, especially in the case of Tom. One chapter he exerts his physical strength to control Myrtle. The only hint of a role reversal is in the narrator's relationship. Nick and Jordan start to date in the novel and easily Jordan is pinned as the one that wears the "pants" in the relationship. Jordan's androgynous name and cool, collected style masculinize her more than any other female character. However, in the end, Nick does exert his dominance over her by ending the relationship. The women in the novel are an interesting group. Not one woman separates herself as a saint and it is not clear who is a saint or a devil. None of them are pure. Jordan and Daisy wear white dresses but this only highlights their corruption. Daisy's corruptions lays in the fact that she is cheating on her husband, along with Myrtle, and Jordan's corruption is she is too masculine and not like a "typical woman" in the novel. The men in the story are expected to earn the big time money and support the maintenance of their woman.
Nick is actually the first to subtly admit gender differences in the novel. "the history of the summer really begins on the evening I drove over there to have dinner with the Tom Buchanans. Daisy was my second cousin once removed, and I'd known Tom in college(Fitzgerald, Chapter 1)". Nick calls the Buchanans the "Tom Buchanans" subtly acknowledging the fact that Daisy has no control.
The next quote, Tom literally and metaphorically "deflates" the two "pure"(because they are in white) women, foreshadowing his actions taken upon Myrtle and Daisy that come along later in the novel. "The only completely stationary object in the room was an enormous couch on which two young women were buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon. They were both in white, and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house. I must have stood for a few moments listening to the whip and snap of the curtains and the groan of a picture on the wall. Then there was a boom as Tom Buchanan shut the rear windows and the caught wind died out about the room, and the curtains and the rugs and the two young women ballooned slowly to the floor(Fitzgerald, Chapter 1)".
Finally, Daisy admits that for a girl to survive she needs to be stupid. Unfortunately, Daisy has been too stupid through out her entire life to see how terrible it is. ""It'll show you how I've gotten to feel about – things. Well, she was less than an hour old and Tom was God knows where. I woke up out of the ether with an utterly abandoned feeling, and asked the nurse right away if it was a boy or a girl. She told me it was a girl, and so I turned my head away and wept. 'All right,' I said, 'I'm glad it's a girl. And I hope she'll be a fool—that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.'"
Nick is actually the first to subtly admit gender differences in the novel. "the history of the summer really begins on the evening I drove over there to have dinner with the Tom Buchanans. Daisy was my second cousin once removed, and I'd known Tom in college(Fitzgerald, Chapter 1)". Nick calls the Buchanans the "Tom Buchanans" subtly acknowledging the fact that Daisy has no control.
The next quote, Tom literally and metaphorically "deflates" the two "pure"(because they are in white) women, foreshadowing his actions taken upon Myrtle and Daisy that come along later in the novel. "The only completely stationary object in the room was an enormous couch on which two young women were buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon. They were both in white, and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house. I must have stood for a few moments listening to the whip and snap of the curtains and the groan of a picture on the wall. Then there was a boom as Tom Buchanan shut the rear windows and the caught wind died out about the room, and the curtains and the rugs and the two young women ballooned slowly to the floor(Fitzgerald, Chapter 1)".
Finally, Daisy admits that for a girl to survive she needs to be stupid. Unfortunately, Daisy has been too stupid through out her entire life to see how terrible it is. ""It'll show you how I've gotten to feel about – things. Well, she was less than an hour old and Tom was God knows where. I woke up out of the ether with an utterly abandoned feeling, and asked the nurse right away if it was a boy or a girl. She told me it was a girl, and so I turned my head away and wept. 'All right,' I said, 'I'm glad it's a girl. And I hope she'll be a fool—that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.'"