significant connections

Fitzgerald’s stories contain many similar characters and plots especially the character or character type of the “golden girl”. the golden girl is a seemingly perfect and ideal woman who turns out to be selfish and deceitful, often manipulating men for there own gain.

“The Great Gatsby” is centred around Jay Gatsby’s love for Daisy and his attempts to win her back from her husband Tom. in this novel daisy is portrayed as the perfect “golden girl” who everyone wishes to have. Daisy comes from an “old money” family, meaning she was born into stable wealth and has always been surrounded by similarly wealthy people, but even among these people Daisy is viewed as above due to her beauty, making her the elite of the elite. In the novel the narrator Nick describes her voice to be “full of money” meaning that she speaks lightly with a perfect English, in the way of the rich and cultured who have never wanted for anything. she is a symbol of perfection to those of the upper classes such as tom, who wish to be with her and to the lower classes such as Myrtle who wish to be her. since she is the golden girl daisy is often admired with her deceptions and flaws going unnoticed or ignored. we as the reader come to realise that Daisy cares more about money than people, marrying tom who she did not love but who and lots of money over Gatsby who she did love but had no money. Gatsby of course knows this, as the sole purpose of gaining his wealth was to win back daisy, but chooses to ignore it. Gatsby even continues to ignores it even when Daisy begins to cry when she sees how expensive Gatsby’s shirts are and how much money he has saying “They’re such beautiful shirts…It makes me sad because I’ve never seen such beautiful shirts before.” as she now knows that marrying him she would be much better off now and even richer.

very similar to the great Gatsby Fitzgerald’s short story “winter dreams” also centres around the protagonist, Dexter, and him trying to win over the Golden girl from other men. In winter dreams the golden girl, Judy, is not obsessed with money but with men. similar to Daisy Judy comes from a very rich family and is considered very beautiful. Judy believes that she is deserving of things since she is rich and beautiful saying “i’m more beautiful than anyone else…why can’t i be happy”. Judy attempts to fill this unhappiness with the affection of others and when she begins dating Dexter it becomes known that she is also dating several other men simultaneously in secret. Dexter becomes aware of this but Judy is able to convince him that she only loves him and in a very similar situation to Gatsby ignoring the fact that daisy only loves him for his money Dexter ignores the facts and chooses to believe Judy. Dexter eventually gets engaged to another woman when Judy get Bored of him and leaves him for other men, however soon after his engagement Judy returns and says she loves Dexter. Judy offers to marry him and she is certain he will since “you could never love anyone but me” the marriage however does not happen as Judy again gets bored of Dexter and leaves him for another man.Judy is much more active and malicious in her deceptions than Daisy but Both are equally unconcerned with how there actions affect others as they are very self centred.

These two stories with similar plots and characters reflect the society at the time, but especially Fitzgerald’s personal life. Th golden girl could be considered to represent Fitzgerald’s wife. Fitzgerald’s wife was considered to be a golden girl in that she was very beautiful however she was diagnosed with schizophrenia and sent to a mental institution. like the golden girls in Fitzgerald’s books his wife was taken away from him and was not able to be “won” back. In the end Fitzgerald was unable to get his wife back and this may have had a strong influence on his writing, especially the theme of the golden girl being taken away and not won back and the tendency towards unhappy endings.