Broken Women

After surviving through the wars, The Lost Generation had a much different outlook on the world as their predecessors. They were known for their excessive drinking, promiscuity, and new outlook on literature. Both F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway embraced the attitude of this group. While Fitzgerald and Hemingway were two of the most influential American authors, their perspectives on the women of the Lost Generation show questionable female presence. In the novels The Sun Also Rises and The Great Gatsby, the women are often questioned for their every action, seen as destructively careless and cunning.

In The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, Brett Ashley is portrayed to be a strong and care-free woman as she is known for her sexuality. She is either loved or hated, encouraged or reprimanded for her actions. It is only upon a deeper level that readers see her internal struggle and her indecisive nature towards her love for Jake Barnes. Underneath the surface of the woman known as a masculine figure is a woman who is broken. Mike Campbell, her current fiance, tells everyone that her last husband “wouldn’t even sleep in a bed. Always made Brett sleep on the floor. Finally, when he got really bad, he used to tell her he’d kill her. Always slept with a loaded service revolver,” (Hemingway 207). Brett loved her husband but ultimately saw him driven to madness due to the hardships he had dealt with in the war. This is an example of the suffering Brett has seen being a nurse in the war and as a wife. Brett had to tear herself away from a love she knew was broken, and continues to use men in replacement of this broken relationship. Her sexuality concerning these many suitors is not what makes her powerful, but what makes her weak. Because of her fear of getting close to another man in the same way, she rejects those who love her. Brett pulls away from Jake, a man she confesses her love for, “Our lips were tight together and then she turned away and pressed against the corner of the seat, as far away as she could get,” (Hemingway 33). In the next line she begs Jake, “‘Don’t touch me. Please don’t touch me,’” (Hemingway 33). Brett begs him not to touch her because of the way he makes her feel. This shows a different side of Brett, with her guard briefly down. She isn’t manipulating Jake, because the one thing she wants from men she cannot have from him. Lady Brett Ashley’s internal struggle between her own strength and her love for Jake are what make her such a dynamic character. While Jake is a victim of Brett’s flightiness, Brett is flighty because she once was a victim as well.

Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsby is also an indecisive character in her love life. She loves Gatsby, yet she refuses to leave Tom to be with him. Tom repeatedly cheats on her with his mistress, Myrtle, and still Daisy cannot let go of him or remove herself from the safety net that is her rich and luxurious lifestyle. Though Gatsby cannot realize why Daisy won’t be with him, Nick does, “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness,” (Fitzgerald 179). When Gatsby left her and went to war, he hurt her to the point of no return, giving her this destructive nature. Daisy has a momentary weakness in her marriage due to another one of Tom’s runs with Myrtle, and she gives in to Gatsby. Gatsby becomes obsessive and pushes her too far; he even tries to convince her that she never loved Tom in the first place. He mentions this to Tom when Daisy denies the statement, “Even alone I can’t say I never loved Tom,” (Fitzgerald 133). Daisy never told Gatsby that she didn’t love Tom. She is so torn between the two men, both of which she is in love with, neither of which she is happy with. While Daisy has not dealt with the same emo
tional struggles that Brett has, she is so indecisive about both of these two men that the back and forth between them has turned into a human tug-of-war with her stuck in the middle. Her fear of love hurt is ultimately what she gives in to, and she returns to her lavish lifestyle and the safety net of family wealth to protect herself. Daisy cannot be blamed for her realization that, while her relationship with Tom may not be perfect, that it is safer than being merely a figurehead in the lifestyle that Gatsby has been chasing for so long.

Loved or hated, both of these women have deeper underlying feelings and insecurities that play a role in their decisions. The emotions that they have carried with them only heavily weigh upon their hearts. Only when reading in between the lines do people see these things. While Hemingway and Fitzgerald may have conveyed the two women as strong, the truth is that they are weak and broken. Constantly giving in to the fear of loss and suffering, they make the choices they do to keep themselves safe.