An Analysis Of F.Scott Fitzgerald's Female View

This paper aims to analyze F. Scott Fitzgerald's female view and try to explain the reason why he had created such kind of women characters through an analysis of the female characters of in two of his main novels and the analysis of the social and cultural changes in the 1920s. F. Scott Fitzgerald is one of the American greatest writers in the 1920s and he is considered as the spokesman of the "flappers". Though it is an over statement to say that Fitzgerald created the flapper, he did, with considerable assistance from his wife Zelda, offer the public an image of a modern young woman who was beautiful, sexually liberated, enthusiastic, yet at the same time cold, spoiled and self-centered. In his mind, this image of young woman represented a new philosophy of romantic individualism, rebellion, and his earliest writings enthusiastically present it as an embodiment of these new values.But at the same time, he fears the appearance of the "New Woman" as he is afraid that the "New Woman" represents not only freedom and rebellion but also moral degeneration. He once wrote to his friend Edmund Wilson in May 1925, "If I had anything to do with creating the manners of the contemporary American girl I certainly made a botch of the job". (Turnbull, Letters 110) The readers would be wrong if they think Fitzgerald know well and totally endorse the flappers. In fact, he is ambivalent about the flappers, and sometimes he even criticizes them severely in his works. This can be seen from the analysis of the female characters in his works.This paper is composed of three chapters besides introduction and conclusion. The introduction part gives a brief introduction of Fitzgerald's life and literary achievement, his critical reception, that is, the literature review, and receptive history of Fitzgerald's works in China.In chapter one, three female characters from The Great Gatsby are analyzed, Daisy, Jordon Backer and Myrtle Wilson. Seen from the surface, they are all beautiful, rich, adored and loved by everyone, yet in the essence they are still under the control and influence of the male world standard. In this chapter, details are analyzed to find out what the three girls'temperaments truly are. Daisy is created as a girl with double image through the narrator Nick's eyes and the hero of the novel, Gatsby's. As a woman in the 1920s, although Daisy has much more liberty than the women before, she still can not escape the control of men in her life and her life still has to be around her husband. As to Jordan Backer, even though she has her own career and is independent financially, she is not approved of in the society and still seen as a liar. Myrtle is a typical lower-class woman in Fitzgerald's novels who tried their best to become a lady but always end with failure.In chapter two, another two female characters, Nicole Diver and Rosemary Hoyt in Tender is the Night are being analyzed through great details from the novel and critical sentences from many critical essays. Nicole is a mental patient of Doctor Diver's, and she becomes his wife. Also, she is an extremely wealthy and beautiful patient. With the help of her money and the love and care of her husband, she regains her health. But she discards her husband for another man, Tommy. In a world where money is the most useful tool, Nicole, the finally independent woman leaves her husband and marries her lover. Another heroine in this novel is the young Hollywood actress, Rosemary Hoyt. When she is young she is attracted to Dick, yet when Dick is in the pain of breaking with Nicole and gets into the trouble of alcohol, she chooses to leave him for he could no more give her what she wanted. The women in this novel are greatly different from those in The Great Gatsby. They are economically and emotionally independent so they can enjoy more freedom and gain their independence from the male standard.The last chapter tries to explain the reasons of the author's female views. The great social and cultural changes in the 1920s are the reasons of the development of the "New Woman". The influence of the First World War on the young generation, the development of the mass production and consumerism give young people especially young women the chance and condition to show themselves. As one member of the young generation, and the husband of a typical flapper, Fitzgerald took it as his duty to depict them truly and honestly. But Zelda's mental breakdown puts him into financial trouble and emotional pain. He had to take care of both his wife and his daughter, and make money to pay their bills at the same time. The image of women in his latter works reveals the great tragedy in his life, and is to some extent the result of this tragedy.It can be seen from the analysis in the three chapters that his attitude toward women is ambivalent from the beginning. On one hand, he adores and appreciates the new women and the new values they represent; on the other hand, he fears that they stand for the moral degeneration. The great tragedy in his life influences the creation of female characters in his fiction. Fitzgerald does not have misogyny like many critics said. As the representative figure of the roaring twenties, he stood by his responsibility as a writer and vividly delineated the women at his time.