Thursday, November 11, 2010

All as One (Lex)

By looking at F. Scott Fitzgerald's 'The Great Gatsby' through a feminist lens I have learned that the women in this novel are generalized into the role of wild beings who need to be controlled. This has hurt my view of the book for two reasons; first, because it brings to light the stubborn and uniform views of women as one group, rather than as individual people; and second, because it promotes male dominance and patriarchy. To start, Tyson argues that all of the "female characters are... versions of the New Woman" (122), which illustrates how Fitzgerald made each and every woman in his novel alike. This suggests that women do not matter as individuals, but rather as a part of society, confined to their gender roles. Tyson continues to state that said female characters are "portrayed as clones" (122), which further illustrates the lack of diversity within the role and status of a woman. Next, Tyson argues that these 'clones' are all "of a single, negative character type" (122), which shows how every woman in The Great Gatsby is portrayed as either "insincere" (122), "horrible" (123), or "narcissistic" (123). As Nick Carraway said, "dishonesty in a woman is a thing you never blame deeply" (63). This is because all women are the same, so if you blame one, you are blaming the entire lot of them, and how can you coexist with an entire sex of people who you dislike for lying or cheating? Finally, both Tyson and Fitzgerald suggest that the solution to this dilemma of our world of uniformly awful women is that the men take care of them. This can be seen at one of Gatsby's parties when two women are having a fight and their husbands break them up by "lift(ing them) kicking into the night" (57). Viewing 'The Great Gatsby' in this way ruins my interpretation of the book because now each of the individual female heroes appear less heroic, for how can one be heroic when they are a clone of society? While previously I sympathized with Daisy for the difficult emotional choices she has to make, I can no longer feel sorry for her while she is just another cog in the dreadful machine that is society. I now propose you, (the reader), these questions: Does Fitzgerald justify this 'common' view of women in the rest of the novel? What true differences do you notice between each of the female characters? Is the proper response for women's 'hysteria' (123) that men should deal with them?

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