Thursday, November 11, 2010

Didn't Need a Lens to See That (Nate)

A single read through F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby will tip any reader off at the fact that Fitzgerald definitely had some feminist points to make. However, looking at it through a feminist lens, in my opinion, is simply redundant. The already prevalent points relating to oppression of women couldn't be more obvious .
"'Alright,' 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 word, a beautiful little fool.'" (Page 17)
This statement is showing that women in 1920s American Society cannot be another more than stupid, beautiful and powerless. Yes, this is feminism critique, but do you really need to be specifically looking for feminist statements to find it? No, not at all! Here's another example...

"'Your wife doesn't love you,' said Gatsby. 'She's never loved you. She loves me.'" (Page 130)
This statement by Gatsby is basically controlling Daisy's emotions without her say. You may think this is a bit less obvious, but I know for a fact one could come up with what I just said about Gatsby without knowing anything about feminist theory. My proof? Our own class, this was discussed during our seminar, and we had yet to learn anything about feminist lens.
So what can feminist lens give us in this book? Does it just reinforce what most people will discover on their first read, or is there something else there that I'm just not seeing?

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