Great Gatsby and the unwelcome entrance of the New Woman

Abstract

This paper examines the presentation of the “New Woman,” the western woman after World War I, in Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. New roles for women were not quickly accepted by the male-dominated society of the 1920s. The Great Gatsby, as a literary work originating from this time, reflects the ideological conflicts of Fitzgerald's culture, and it shows examples of the “New Woman” in multiple situations, presenting a largely negative viewpoint of social changes associated with gender. Regardless of Fitzgerald’s personal point of view, this novel clearly shows his culture’s discomfort with the image of the “New Woman” as it emerged after World War I and her new roles in society. The papers finds that Fitzgerald’s narrative choice to focus his storytelling through a male perspective sets the tone for the cultural bias he illustrates, as he filters the female characters through a male point of view, normalizing this perspective as the default, valuable one. Examples of the “New Woman” in the three major female characters Daisy, Jordan, and Myrtle are all demonstrated as troubled beings who, despite the relative freedom that they enjoy, remain dependent on men.