earticle

영어

This paper re-reads The Great Gatsby to examine how the automobile as a representation of modernity creates new gender discourses about women’s driving and mobility in the 1920s. During the Jazz Age, the automobile became an important part of American popular culture and significantly changed the urban life of Americans. In this context, The Great Gatsby presents the automobile as a symbol of American modernity, especially when Myrtle’s tragic car accident functions as a central incident of the plot. By investigating different female characters’ relationships to automobiles and driving, this paper argues that gender plays a substantial role to decide the way each female character identifies her experience with a car. While male characters often identify their social status and reputation based on the car they own, female characters’ approaches to cars are represented as passive and even negative in terms of their sexual promiscuity and expensive tastes. At the same time, this paper aims to read Jordan Baker as a new, alternative type of a female driver who resists negative social prejudice against women’s driving.