In Chapter One, Daisy recalls the birth of her daughter. She says; “I’m glad it’s a girl, and I hope she’ll be a fool – that’s the best thing a girl can be – a beautiful little fool.” - Consider Fitzgerald’s presentation of female characters in the novel; make reference to society at the time.

Scott Fitzgerald, born in 1896 in Minnesota, wrote the Great Gatsby in the 1920’s and is considered one of his most successful novels. Fitzgerald typically presents the female characters as uneducated, hypocritical and bitter.

Daisy Buchanen is the central female character in ‘The Great Gatsby’. She is an increasingly difficult woman to understand, in that; she has made herself deeply unhappy in continuing her marriage to her husband Tom Buchanen. However, her social status is far more important to her than fidelity, and she refuses to give up her lavish lifestyle and break away from Tom, even though he has had countless affairs with other women.

“I thought everybody knew.”

This shows that even though Daisy knows about the current affair at least, she is not willing to leave Tom, simply because in continuing her marriage, she is able to maintain the status that being attached to the Buchanen name gives her, this indicates that she is able to accept infidelity because her security is very important to her.

In the nineteen-twenties feminism became steadily more prominent, with women emphasising their rights to everything and anything. Daisy seems to reflect a certain aspect of this, which becomes distinctive when Jordan, Nick, Tom and Daisy are in the garden together.

“The telephone rang inside, startingly as Daisy shook her head decisively at Tom the subject of stables, in fact all subjects vanished into thin air.”

This shows that Daisy has a grasp on Tom, since she knows about the affair that he is having. This means that she sustains some level of a moral high ground, and can therefore make certain decisions. This extract also portrays Daisy as quite a powerful woman for the same reason.

When Daisy recalls the birth of her daughter, she is emotionally at a very low point. She realises that Tom doesn’t love her, but stays with her because she is everything that he believes a wife should be.

“That’s the best thing a girl can be in this World, a beautiful little fool.”

This extract shows that Daisy is no fool, she recognises that Tom doesn’t love her, and consequently becomes bitter as their marriage continues. Daisy knows that she is attractive; she is also aware that Tom hasn’t left her because of the social unpleasantness it would cause to them both. She simply looks like she should have money, and have a good background, which at this time was one of the most important attributes a woman could have. However, Daisy seems just as shallow as Tom outwardly appears

“Better to stick with a husband who merely smashes women’s noses, or directs a murderer to his victim”

This shows that Daisy would never dare to become entangled with Gatsby’s blatantly dishonest means of living. To Daisy, Buchanen money is safe and honest, there would be no danger that either Tom nor Daisy could be detained.

This is perhaps true of the time, many upper class women were scandalised by the seedy underworld, and would effectively look down their noses at someone from the same class dealing in this underhanded fashion. Unfortunately, for many (such as James Gatz) people from a lower class position, wishing to make something of themselves this was the only option.

Jordan Baker is a typical gossip. Even though Daisy is her friend, she does not refrain from talking about her. Even to Nick, who at the time was a perfect stranger to her.

“Why -,” she said hesitantly, “Tom’s got some woman in New York.”

This hints that she is a woman with few morals, and this becomes more distinctive as the novel continues. As a woman she is also very careless, which seems to be rare for a woman of this time.

“Suppose you met somebody just as careless as yourself?’

“I hope I never will,’ she answered ‘I hate careless people.”

Her answer to this question that Nick asks her shows that Jordan doesn’t think things through thoroughly, and takes life as it comes at her. This appears to be quite true of many women of this time, since America was trying to enjoy life after the horror of the war, which ended in 1918.

Jordan shows a cool, confident and proud face to the world, yet when people get to know her, they discover that she this façade is only to protect herself from getting hurt in life.

“The bored, haughty face that she turned to the world concealed something”

Jordan, as a character is not immediately likeable, because she seems to hold herself above everybody else, but as the novel continues, she shows herself to be a worthwhile and trusted friend

At the time that ‘The Great Gatsby’ was published it was popular for writers to write in the first person, and indirectly base certain aspects of their characters on their own personalities. If this applies to ‘The Great Gatsby’, does this mean that Nick is based upon Scott Fitzgerald himself, and is Jordan, who quickly becomes involved with Nick, based loosely on Zelda his wife?

Myrtle Wilson is portrayed as a binary opposite of Daisy Buchanen. Fitzgerald has done this to show the striking opposite between Tom’s wife, who he is bound to, and his Mistress who he loves.

Myrtle is everything that Daisy is not – since Fitzgerald describes her as “smouldering” and as having “wide hips”. This indicates that she has childbearing hips, and has a ripe body. The way that Fitzgerald describes Daisy indicates that she is slim and has a boyish figure, and that her money has enabled her to look this way, as upper class women were expected to look striking, controlled and well dressed. Myrtle is described as having a “passionate mouth”, which indicates in turn that Daisy does not, thus ensuring that the readers conception is that Daisy is an impassionate, cold and progressively bitter woman. However, this is not the case as Daisy weeps when Gatsby shows her the shirts that he has;

“They’re such beautiful shirts’ she sobbed, her voice muffled in the thick folds”

This extract shows that she is human enough to express some kind of emotion, and she is a hopeless romantic. She is obviously overwhelmed with the reality of Jay Gatsby, and is regretting her hast in marrying Tom, and not waiting for Gatsby to come back for her.

Myrtle’s “passionate mouth” is an instant suggestion to her vibrant personality that George Wilson has unintentionally tried to crush during their marriage, however Myrtle still carries the earthiness that Wilson must have originally fallen in love with, and that Tom now does.

However, Myrtle and Daisy do have some similarities, as both are trapped within a marriage that they don’t want to be in. Myrtle is locked away is a cold, unfeeling desolate wasteland, and Daisy is caught in a marriage where her husband has no regard for her feeling, and merely treats her as an object.

Easy women (frequently these women were of a lower class) of this time were described with prominent hips and busts. This is a very sexual image, and therefore is self explanatory as why Tom is having an affair with Myrtle.

She is not the typical woman that Tom would usually continue a romance with, since she is from a very poor background, and she has very little money even now she is married. Myrtle dreamt of something better than her previous years, and married George Wilson because she thought that he could provide her with this.

“I married him because I thought he was a gentleman,’ she said finally, ‘ I thought he knew something about breeding, but he wasn’t fit to lick my shoe.”

This is the reason that Myrtle doesn’t love George, and it is questionable whether she ever loved him, but for now she loves Tom. This is only for the simple reason that Tom Buchanen can provide her with what she needs, which is attention and wealth.

It is uncertain whether Myrtle is aware that Tom and Daisy have a child, still, she wants Tom to lave Daisy for her, yet in her heart she knows this will never happen, which is why she was thrilled when the yellow car with Daisy and Gatsby drove past. She thought that Tom had come back for her, having seen him in the same car that afternoon, and was overjoyed.

In Conclusion, Fitzgerald presents his female characters as devious and cunning, since they always go after what they want. Daisy is conniving, in the way that she keeps Gatsby hanging, even though she never has any intention of leaving Tom, simply because Buchanen money is better than Gatsby money. Jordan seems to be a typical woman of this time; in the way that Fitzgerald presents her. She is excessively self absorbed and selfish, and seems to only care about the material things that occur in her life. Myrtle lives in the underworld of the microcosm that Fitzgerald has created in ‘The Great Gatsby’ and is certainly less dishonest than the other two central characters, but she still has the element that Fitzgerald created to convince the reader that her intentions are not admirable.