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Analyzing Fitzgerald's women from a different critical
approachbased on the two concepts of "social identity" and
"emotional identity,"this thesis intends to propose that women
in The Great Gatsby and TenderIs the Night constitute a family
of reality. Daisy Fay Buchanan is an upper class sister changed
hues, whose identity fluctuates from emotionalto social,
romantic to socio-materialistic. Myrtle Wilson is a poor
working-class sister who always yearns for the symbolic
discourse of thearistocracy. Nicole Warren Diver is a leisure-
class sister who initiallysituates herself in the context of
emotional principles and eventuallyidentifies herself with the
symbolic discourse in which she is a part.Rosemary Hoyt is the
daughter of this family, who, nourished by its socialidentity,
practices and follows it accordingly. Baby Warren is the head
ofthis family, whose identity is steadfastly located in the
stream of thehard, amoral reality. Read in this way, contrary
to Fitzgerald's male protagonists who are universally
acknowledged dreamers, his femalecharacters are unrecognized
realists.
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