In literature it is always the women characters who are presented primarily as those who suffer and endure
Explore the extent to which you agree with this statement in the great Gatsby
Throughout “The Great Gatsby”, F Scott Fitzgerald explores the inequality in gender and the role of women in America throughout the 1920s, specifically homing in on the hardships that as females, Daisy, Myrtle and Jordon had to endure in the particularly male dominated society in that period of time. Such hardships are presented to be as a result of gender inequality and inferiority with regard to the sexism that was typical of the “roaring twenties”, but also due to the importance of social status and class within the novel. Such suffering experienced by the female characters is presented by Fitzgerald to be emotionally detrimental to the female characters, but it is also argued that as a contrast to this, the male characters of Jay Gatsby, Tom and Wilson additionally and equally endure certain hardships throughout the book also, which will further be explored in depth within the course of this essay.
Firstly, Fitzgerald suggests that because of the failure of his pursuit for Daisy and the deterioration of his dream, that Gatsby endured a great deal of suffering as he “had lived too long with one single dream”. This not only foreshadows his tragic death at the end of the novel but also evokes a degree of sympathy from the reader as it implies that for 5 years, Gatsby’s life has evolved around “waiting for Daisy” and for the “green light” to be within his reach. The writer reveals that every motive Gatsby had, was to become closer and closer to Daisy and that she was the complete centre of his life. The fact that “Gatsby bought that house so daisy would be just across the bay” reinforces this and emphasizes his level of infatuation for Daisy and accompanied with the connotations of the colour green and the significance of the light, we can infer that Daisy represented all that was wealthy and valuable in his eyes and that as a consequence of this, when she dismisses him and began “drawing further and further into herself”, his hopes for achieving his ultimate goal resorted to nothing more then a “dead dream”. Here the use of the conclusive adjective “dead” emphasizes how greatly Gatsby has suffered at the hands of Daisy and how much he has had lost due to pursuing her for so long causing him to struggle “unhappily, undespairingly” in an attempt to keep Daisy and the potential for the fulfilment of his dream within his grasp. Therefore, as a result of the suffering endured by Gatsby due to the love he had for Daisy, it is arguable that the suffering demonstrated within the novel is not dictated by gender but instead it is additionally caused by the lost hopes and ambitions of the characters within the Great Gatsby which is symbolic of the corruption of the American dream. Consequently contradicting the statement as Fitzgerald makes it clear to the reader that...
