女: Women
I can’t say I was the most attentive student in APUSH
last year, or that I took any extra effort to keep what I learned in that class
in my brain, but the general feel of the 1920’s stuck with me – a decade of
jubilance, with peace and prosperity and happy, dancing children. And, of
course, women. Newly liberated women. They gained the right to vote with the 19th
Amendment. They kept the career mobility they found during World War I. They
broke out of their traditional female roles, creating the flapper.
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| The flapper -- girls wilder than any before |
The flapper aptly represented the “Roaring Twenties,”
seeking pleasure, fun, and risks in the ultimate hedonistic period of America’s
history. It was akin to letting a bird out of its cage – the woman in the 1920’s
was the image of freedom. Which is why it struck me as odd that Daisy – a supposedly
liberated woman who should be enjoying life in the 1920’s – was so obviously trapped.
At a glance, Daisy looks pretty free. She’s affluent
due to being married to the “enormously wealthy” (10) Tom Buchanan. But because
of his infidelity, the best thing for her would probably be to leave him – and that’s
where she’s trapped. She’s unwilling to leave his money and the comfortable
life that comes with it, and would rather turn away and try to be “a beautiful
little fool” (21).
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| Tom and Daisy Buchanan in the 2013 movie adaptation of The Great Gatsby |
And I think that says something about the 1920’s as a
whole. This hedonism that’s been seen as so-called “freedom” is actually just a
vicious cycle of superficial materialism.
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