了不起的盖茨比读书笔记 英文版精选.doc

The Mirror of the Social Morality ——The Females in The Great Gatsby As an unreplaceable part of the society, females are often considered to be in an unequal status and act a different role from males. By now, they are gaining more and more attention. It’s interesting to analyze their words, their behaviors and their thoughts, because they are usually more sensitive to the changeable society and more likely to react to the change. Therefore, to some extent, they are a mirror of the social morality in their times. In F.Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, there are many female characters. They are of various personalities: some of them look pure while some of them seem to be hypocritic. However, all of them play a vital role in developing the fascinating plot and fitting in the large picture of the theme. From these females, we can learn how they reflect the general corruption of the morality at Jazz Age, especially the value of money and the hypocrisy. One of the most distinctive subject in the novel is the American values, indicated by Myrtle and Daisy especially when they choose between love and money. To begin with, Myrtle, namely Mrs.Wilson, is the wife of a garage owner George B.Wilson. Wilson loves her so much that he even becomes insane after her death.According to this, she should have cherished their marriage. However, she marries him just “because I thought he is a gentleman”(P41), and she has an affair with Tom, a man who even broke her nose. Her choice of husband or lover is not depended on how much he loves her, but merely their status. It is strange, isn’t it? Whether she really loves Tom more than Wilson or not is uncertain, but it is clear that Tom is richer. Although Myrtle lives in lower class of the society, she is always struggling to go up. Unlike her husband, who is “a blond, spiritless man”(P31) without the desire, she is with “immediately perceptible vitality”(P31). So she tries to improve her status