Chapter 14: The Role of Women
The women in The Great Gatsby, particularly Daisy and Myrtle, represented different aspects of femininity in the 1920s. Daisy embodied the beautiful, wealthy woman who was nevertheless trapped in an unhappy marriage, unable to find fulfillment in either her husband or her lover.
Myrtle, in contrast, represented working-class women who sought to escape their circumstances through relationships with wealthy men. Her affair with Tom was an attempt to transcend her social class, but it ultimately led to her death and highlighted the limited options available to women of that era.
Jordan Baker represented the new, independent woman of the 1920s—a professional athlete who lived on her own terms. However, her cynicism and dishonesty suggested that even this new independence was corrupted by the moral decay of the society around her.