"Bitch" (Tim)

While reading Tyson's "Next they'll throw everything overboard... " I realized how I can subliminally view of female characters as "bitches" solely for there aggressiveness, or their defiance of the paternal social structure. Fitzgerald uses his female characters to paint a pretty shady picture of the "New" woman. She is shallow (cheating, lying, blaming), irresponsible, and spoiled. I agree with Tyson when she says that the women who attend Gatsby's parties are "narcissistic attention-seekers in various stages of drunken hysteria" (page 123). Paying close attention to the women of the story reveals that it does not really empower women to be their own woman. In fact, it shows that when women try to be independent, they only make a fool of themselves: Dancing alone on the dance-floor, fighting, getting so drunk they must be carried out of the party, ect. To put it bluntly, it makes women seem to simple to be able to function well in the world of men. It changes my idea of Gatsby being a forward-looking view of society, that promotes equality amongst classes and genders, to one that presents a pretty awful view of women. What is the point of showing women in such a bad light? Is Fitzgerald trying to warn us about the dangers of the free woman? Or his he being ironic, and showing through sarcasm the pettiness of how we reduce women to being self absorbed bitches?