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摘 要

《了不起的盖茨比》是菲茨杰拉德的一部杰作，反映了爵士时代的美国社会。该书通过局外人尼克之口叙述了盖茨比的爱情悲剧。书中尼克被标榜为正直之人，不爱评论别人的是非。但它却引导着我们从男性视角看待书中人物。本文从女性主义角度解读小说中女性人物黛西，乔丹和茉特尔的悲剧。她们的悲剧某种意义上也代表了爵士时代的女性悲剧。

关键词：爵士时代；悲剧；女性；女权主义

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 1

3. Feminism movement and Feminist Criticism 2

3.1 The development of feminism 2

3.2 Feminism at the Jazz Age 4

3.3 The main schools of feminist criticism 4

4.The Tragedy of the Women 6

4.1 Daisy Buchanan’s tragedy 6

4.2 Jordan Baker’s tragedy 8

4.3 Myrtle Wilson’s tragedy 9

5.Advice for Women 10

6.Conclusion 10

Works Cited 11

1. Introduction

The Great Gatsby, which describes the American society at the Jazz Age, is a masterpiece written by Fitzgerald in 1920s. Fitzgerald is now considered as one of the greatest writers because of his works, especially The Great Gatsby. The Great Gatsby tells a story whose plot is familiar to most of the readers: a sad disillusioning love story. But it is not only a love story. It is intertwined with the force of the American Dream. The American Dream at that time makes it a trend to accumulate money and pursue success and it also drives Gatsby to join in the trend not only for the money or the fame but also for his reunion with Daisy. However, it finally tends out to be a tragedy with the death of Myrtle Wilson, Jay Gatsby and George Wilson.

1. Literature Review

The Great Gatsby is now considered as one of the classic books in the world, and its writer, Fitzgerald, also gained great reputation from his works. With the increasing popularity in The Great Gatsby, more and more critics made great endeavors to do researches on it from different angles. At the beginning, critics mainly concentrated on the author’s literary works and his living experience. Later, many literary criticism theories, such as modern psychoanalysis, feminist criticism and structuralism criticism, sprung up and made deeper and more diverse study on The Great Gatsby. Under these circumstances, the race, class, gender and other more complicated issues have been raised and been discussed heatedly.

Researchers in China began to study The Great Gatsby in the 1980s. In the early years, critics always analyzed it from the perspective of a male character. They attached more importance to Gatsby, the protagonist of this novel, and showed more sympathy for him. As to Daisy, the goddess in the eye of Gatsby, was considered as a devil and was badly blamed for the death of Gatsby. Later, some critics began to study The Great Gatsby from the perspective of feminism. They focused on the description of women, dug out the tragedy of them and revealed the oppression of women that had existed in the society for thousands of years.

Zhang Xiaohua (2008) pointed out in The Tragic Image of Women-An Analysis on The Great Gatsby from the Perspective of Feminism that it is the materialism and the author’s masculinity that resulted in the tragedy of the three women character, Daisy Buchanan, Jordan Baker and Myrtle Wilson. Wang Na and Sun Gengmei (2014) added in their cooperative paper that apart from the influence of materialism and masculinity, the fear for feminism also attributed to the tragedy of Daisy, Jordan and Myrtle.

Xu Ke (2013) further probed into the tragedy of Daisy in An Analysis on Daisy’s Position as a victim in The Great Gatsby. He focused on the objectification and otherness from the perspective of feminism, thinking that Daisy was considered as the representative of the upper-class and treated as goods robbed by Gatsby and Tom. He also showed his sympathy for her because she had suffered from the oppression of masculinity.

The most tragic woman, Myrtle, also attracted the researchers attention. Peng Tengyao (2011) and Tai Bei (2016) expatiated on Myrtle’s tragedy and showed their sympathy for her unexpected death. Peng Tengyao pointed out in Disillusioned Myrtle---Women in The Great Gatsby that Tom and Wilson both treated her as their belongings. Tai Bei poignantly expressed her idea in The Modern Tragedy of Mr. And Mrs. Wilson in The Great Gatsby that the materialism, the dirty living environment, the family relationship and Myrtle’s eagerness for higher social position attributed to Myrtle’s death altogether.

These years, more and more researchers show their interests in the description of women in The Great Gatsby, and try to look on them from a just perspective though masculinity still dominates the society and the literary criticism. This paper adopts the feminist criticism to analyze the tragedy of women in The Great Gatsby and seeks to lessen the social oppression of women by giving advice to them.

1. Feminism movement and Feminist Criticism

3.1 The development of feminism

For a long time, human history has been inherited the tradition of patriarchism. Women have been dominated by men since the decline of the matriarchal society in the primitive era. In the old days, women made great efforts to obtain freedom, equality and ideological emancipation. The growth of feminism has experienced three waves of ideological liberation during the past hundreds of years.

The first wave generally refers to feminist ideas and large-scale women"s movements in developed countries in Europe and America from 1890 to 1960. The first wave is mainly based on middle-class European and American women. They have organized political and social movements to provide women with better education, more job opportunities and higher legal status. At the same time, a number of liberal theories emerged, which pointed out the existence of gender inequality at the time and the oppression of women in the social systems. It also called for the elimination of gender discrimination and gender oppression, combined with the political movement for equal rights of women.

In the late 1960s, the second wave of feminist movements appeared in Europe and America. It raised doubts about the first wave of feminism. Some feminists believed that although women had the right to vote, to work and to be educated, the fact was not changed that they were essentially gender inequality, and the traditional role of women in the family and society kept the same. The second wave of feminism had theoretically turned to gender politics, gender identity, class and ethnicity, and inquired for the underlying reasons for gender subordination and gender oppression from psychological analysis, historical culture and social structure.

In the 1980s, society entered the post-feminist era. Feminist ideology has a “resurgence”, arguing that women should not reject femininity and require women to return to traditional roles. At the same time as the post-feminist era is the third wave of feminism. The third wave explored the problems of the post-female era. The third wave is the main body of the new generation of feminists. They are exposed to feminist thoughts for the first time from university education or women"s research projects. They also come into contact with various post-modern cultural trends and continue to propose the second wave--gender, gender oppression, sexual politics and other themes. They accept the post-modernism"s deconstruction of meta-narrative, accept the political position of difference and pluralism, criticize traditional feminist gender, ethnic essentialism interpretation and unified understanding of gender oppression. Adhering to women as an identity is a relative concept that adheres to the diversity of female experiences, female political positions, and feminist forms.

3.2 Feminism at the Jazz Age

In convention, women were considered inferior to and belonged to men. But it made a difference when women in the America were granted with the right to vote by passing the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution (Gross 109). From then on, women were demanding more than before.

A few years before the Jazz Age, upper-class and middle-class women were limited to the standards the patriarchism and the social background put on them. The standards expected them to be obedient to husbands and to encourage them to be mothers. They not only spared no efforts on their family, but also forgave their husbands when they were unfaithful. However, some advanced women at the Jazz Age time wanted much more from marriage and from life. They were striving for the independence and wanted to be partners with their husbands, which involved that they wanted romance and good sex lives (Gross 110). Young women at that time smoked cigarettes , wore makeup and danced all night. They discussed sex openly. They engaged in sports like tennis, golf, and swimming. Fashions reflected the new liberation. But actually women were only a little better off than they had been earlier because it was still very difficult for most of them to be completely independent.

The economic position was the most important factor that deprived women the right of independence. Women at that time had few job opportunities to support themselves. Even these women with jobs usually got low pay and could hardly allow them to live an independent life. All these along with the general assumption that woman’s only real career was marriage made women financial prisoner.

3.3 The main schools of feminist criticism

With the development of the feminist movement, feminism gained variation in different countries, social background, and political levels, and thus derived a number of feminist criticism schools. Some notable ones are the Anglo-American criticism, French criticism, Marxist criticism and post-colonial criticism.

Anglo-American criticism has two cut points. One is to reinterpret the classic works from the perspective of women, to deconstruct the literary and cultural model centered on male power; the second is to re-examine the female writers and their works. The first category focuses on women who are readers, that is, consumers in men’s works. Because it is aimed at male works and male criticism, it is impossible to understand women’s actual experience and feelings, but only to study the female image in the male literature. The second category focuses on women who are authors, studying the history, themes, types, and structures of literature created by women as subjects. This type of approach is centered on women"s writing and is linked to the criticism of women"s subcultures.

The rise of French feminist criticism began in the late twentieth century when new ideas such as the tide of ideas and new Freudianism surged. French female criticism is rooted in linguistics, focusing on linguistic critique, psychological construction and metaphysical theoretical elucidation. An important theory of French feminist criticism is “female writing”, which permeates the differences between women’s body and women in language and text, and focuses on the composition of women in language, philosophy, psychoanalysis and other discourse systems, focusing on the relationship between women and language. Its focus is on the theoretical characteristics of post-psychological analysis that reflects strong deconstruction.

Marxist feminist literary criticism is based on feminist thinking, cultural principles, and critical spirit. It emphasizes the economic roots of women"s oppression, attaches importance to the overall production mode of women"s society, and advocates the female liberation of private ownership through revolution. Marxist feminism is based on the field of figurative literature, focusing on specific texts, literary phenomena and cultural laws, and applying Marxist views in the field of literature. Marxist feminist literary criticism believes that only by adopting a comprehensive vision that integrates economics, politics, ideology, culture, gender differences, gender structure, and exchange system can we scientifically reveal the root causes of women"s widespread oppression in the history of world literature. In order to highly interpret women, we can deeply explore the ways of women"s liberation in the field of literature.

Post-colonial feminists attach great importance to words, identities, and subjects. Language is considered a favorable weapon to overthrow patriarchy and imperialism. Post-colonial feminist criticism criticizes Western cultural hegemony and its dominant discourse on the paternalistic, hegemonic suppression of the third-world women and minority women. Second, post-colonial feminist criticism also attempts to analyze colonial discourse and tries to find a way out for decolonization. The post-colonial feminist criticism enriched the critical discourse of the third world and provided a new perspective for the third world women in the Western hegemonic discourse, thus becoming the most meaningful theoretical exploration in feminist criticism.

4.The Tragedy of the Women

Many people hold the idea that The Great Gatsby is a book about Gatsby’s tragedy and handsomely show their sympathy for him. Even the writer himself wished us to think like that. He created a story-teller, Nick, who is honest and is able to reserve judgment about others. Therefore, readers fall into the tricks of masculinity. But if we think of it from the perspective of feminism, we will find some quite different information. Jordan once had a description of Daisy. In her words, Daisy is just a poor girl, beautiful but tragic. And it is the same with Myrtle and herself. So we can say that The Great Gatsby is also a book about the tragedy of the women.

4.1 Daisy Buchanan’s tragedy

Critics often tend to describe Daisy as an evil and deceiving girl and attribute Gatsby’s death to her. But from the perspective of feminism, Daisy is also a poor victim of the society and it is reasonable for her to behave like that. With regard to Gatsby’s death, Daisy is of course responsible for it but it is also true that she means no harm and after this incident she has no idea as usual but to follow Tom’s arrangement. The Great Gatsby is not only a tragedy for Gatsby but also for Daisy.

To expatiate on Daisy’s tragedy, the social background, Daisy’s parents, Tom and even Gatsby are taken into consideration. The social background comes first. The story took place at the Jazz Age, from 1920s to 1930s in America. At that time, new women, the flappers appeared, who appealed to the happiness of marriage and sex life. They also pursued the enjoyment of the materiel. They wanted to live in lavish houses, wear exotic clothes and drive expensive cars. They smoked cigarettes, wore makeup and danced all night. But the problem was that they had no ability to live such a life except for marrying to wealthy men and relying on them, which made them become dependent on their husbands. Daisy is the product of such a society. She is a sort of financial prisoner, whose lifestyle depends on Tom’s money and she herself has no real way of making money. Daisy’s parents are also responsible for her tragedy. According to Jordan Baker’s words, Daisy once fell in passionate love with Gatsby and even wanted to eloped with him on a winter night but was found and prevented by her parents, which made her upset and refused to speak with her family for several weeks. Soon after that, she married a wealthy man, Tom, who was well-matched with her in socioeconomic position and could give her a guarantee of high-quality life but was not loyal to their marriage. This is the tragedy of Daisy’s marriage in which Tom plays the most important role. First, as Daisy’s husband, Tom is a national figure in football field and from a well-to-do family, following the conventional view that women are inferior to and belong to men and thus treats Daisy as his belongings. This is the reason that there exists no equality in their marriage. In addition to it, Tom has no affection for Daisy. Just as Daisy married to him for money and social position, Tom also has his own attention. It is believed that women considered as their husbands’ belongings represent their wealth and power (Chen 15). Daisy is a lady from an upper-class family and is famous for her beautiful looking and has many followers. Such a lady is well-matched with him in socioeconomic position and could bring him a feeling of honor in social situations. What’s more, Tom is unfaithful to their marriage and shows no care for Daisy and their daughter. He even failed to keep Daisy company when she was suffering from the pain of giving birth to their daughter, which hurt Daisy greatly and gave her an abandoned feeling. Besides it, Tom has a regular girl outside and even hardly bothers to hide it. As a result, his acquaintance all know it, including his wife, Daisy Buchanan. When the car accident happens, he feels extremely upset at Myrtle’s death rather than thinking about Daisy. Gatsby, another man in Daisy’s life, also results in her tragedy. When Daisy was an unmarried lady, Gatsby won her love with some tricks. He made Daisy believe that he could take care of her but actually he didn’t have this ability and couldn’t refuse to be redeployed to other places (Xu 203). He left Daisy waiting for him but at the same time gave her a feeling of abandonment. When he comes back, he validates his wealth and creates a well-educated gentleman image for himself by telling lies. What’s more, he expects Daisy to leave Tom and even forces her to say that she never loves Tom. He successfully makes Daisy be accused of being an unfaithful lady and nearly breaks her family by using his crazy love. Generally speaking, his love for Daisy is just a lie which absolutely makes everyone believe in it including himself. Daisy, along with his house and his car, is the representation of his American Dream. The house and the car represents his wealth and Daisy the social position. In a word, Daisy, to some extent, is the object that can symbolize his success.

4.2 Jordan Baker’s tragedy

Jordan is an actually new woman in this novel. She is in nature different from Daisy and Myrtle. As a golf athlete, she has her own job and this makes her independent of men. Her tragedy comes from the social background and the extreme points of feminism at that time. People in that society had a crush love for money and wanted to live a luxurious life. Jordan is also a member of them. Although she is a middle-class lady, Jordan has the aspiration to be that of upper-class. She likes parties and confesses that she feels hyper-excited to be friends with Daisy. Such an aspiration destroys the real meaning of her life. However, the most important force that brings about her tragedy is the extreme points of feminism at that time. Jordan as the representation of the new women is independent of men and wants to build an equal love relationship with her partner. She loves sports, smokes cigarettes and behaves cynically, quite different from the obedient women of her age. Or we can say that she has some similarities with some men. But she is too dishonest and self-centered to get along with others, even the man she passionately loves. We can easily find that Jordan wants to be dominant in the love relationship between Nick and her and she never allows herself to be in a disadvantageous position (Tai Analysis 587). At last, she breaks up with Nick due to her selfishness and dishonesty but she blames it on Nick’s indifference on the phone. The feminism forms her the new image of woman, gives her the dignity, but also devastates her love and life.

4.3 Myrtle Wilson’s tragedy

Myrtle is no doubt the poorest woman in this novel if we study from her financial background and the men of her life. She is a lower-class woman and gets married to a poor lower-class man. Her husband is boring and lack in vigor. Accidentally, she meets with Tom, a wealthy man who could satisfy her needs for material and thus she is willing to be the belonging of him and expects to elevate her social position by being his mistress. But the car accident destroys everything: her life, Gatsby’s life, her husband’s life, Daisy’s love and Jordan’s love.

Myrtle’s tragedy undoubtedly has something to do with the social background, but lies more in two men of her life: Wilson and Tom. Wilson is her husband. As a man and her husband, Wilson couldn’t satisfy her needs and give her happiness, which puts Myrtle away from him. In their marriage, Myrtle seems to be in a dominant position but actually Wilson as a man also has the view that men are superior to women. From his mad behaviour to Myrtle and her possible lover, we can find that he can’t tolerate the fact that there was some spot on his dignity as a man (Peng 339). He gets Myrtle locked in the house, throws her down and beats her. He even plans to take Myrtle away disregarding her unwillingness, which illustrates that there is also no real equality in their marriage. Wilson uses his masculine power to make him over his wife. As to Tom, he treats Myrtle not as a woman or a human being but as his belonging which is bought with his money. He is unfaithful to Daisy, making Myrtle his mistress but he does not love her either. He looks down on her, and he even hurts her when she calls Daisy’s name (Tai Modern 121). It is a very ridiculous thing that Myrtle buys goods with Tom’s money, while Tom buys Myrtle with money. Although it seems that Tom loves Myrtle, but it reflects their real relationship on the thing of buying the dog. When Myrtle asks “ is it a boy or a girl?”(Fitzgerald 68) Tom says decisively “ It’s a bitch. Here is your money. Go and buy ten more dogs with it.”(Fitzgerald 68) It suggests that their relationship is based on the money and Tom doesn’t care about Myrtle’s feelings. Tom even tells a lie to Myrtle that Daisy is a Catholic and she doesn’t believe in divorce in order to make Myrtle believe that he loves her but can’t marry her. Avoiding Wilson’s threat, wishing Tom to save her, Myrtle is finally killed by Daisy in a car accident.

5.Advice for Women

Some women still have tragic lot though feminism is more and more mature. No matter how developed the equality of the international education is, many regions still retain the concept of discrimination against women. The idea of “male are superior to female” is still prevalent, and it is common to treat women unequally. However, with the development of education equality and the transformation of social and economic structure, most women begin to accept higher education, embark on the society, find suitable jobs and get the rewards they deserve. Modern women already have the capacity to protect their own rights and interests. They have more choices, less reliance on men"s economic support and they have the ability to think independently and make choices.At the same time, this also poses a higher challenge for contemporary women --- in order to pursue the life they want, they need to try their best to cultivate themselves.

6.Conclusion

The Great Gatsby describes the society of America between 1920s to 1930s. In the car accident at the end of the story, the tragedy finds its way. In the face of the tragedy, former critics usually show their sympathy for Gatsby but ignore the same tragedy of the women in the book, especially that of Daisy Buchanan. With the increasing love and sympathy for Gatsby, more and more accusation are given to Daisy. But from the standpoint of women, Daisy is as tragic as Gatsby. She is also a victim of the society and the convention. And so are Jordan and Myrtle. Through the construction of these characters, Fitzgerald reveals the tragedy of the whole society, the money-oriented people and the evil Jazz Age.

Works Cited

Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. Canada: Broadview Press, 2007.

Gross, Dalton, MaryJean Gross. Understanding The Great Gatsby: A Student Casebook to Issues, Sources, and Historical Documents. Greenwood: Greenwood Press, 1998.

陈英，陈新辉：《女性视界——女性主义哲学的兴起》. 北京：中国社会科学出版社，2012

[Chen Ying, Chen Xinhui. The Perspective of Women--The Rise of Feminist Philosophy. Beijing: China Social Science Press, 2012]

彭腾瑶：《美梦难圆的茉特尔——析lt;了不起的盖茨比gt;中的女性角色》.《文化商业》，10（2011）339.

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