To what extent do “Death of a Salesman” and “The Great
Gatsby” portray women as being shaped and controlled by
societal expectations, in line with Simone de Beauvoir’s idea
that “one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman”?
Beauvoir’s declaration that ‘one is not born, but rather becomes a woman’1 highlights the cultural forces
that construct feminine identity—an idea central to Miller’s Death of a Salesman and Fitzgerald’s The
Great Gatsby. Though formally distinct, Miller's realist tragedy and Fitzgerald's modernist novel depict
women shaped and constrained by patriarchal expectations. Femininity in these texts is not innate but
socially inscribed, defined by the ideological and historical forces that produced them. Both authors reveal
womanhood as a contingent identity imposed and sustained by cultural, economic, and narrative
structures.
1
De Beauvoir, S., 2023. The second sex. In Social theory re-wired. Routledge.
1
, Beauvoir’s formulation that ‘one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman’2 underpins a broader
existential argument that femininity is not an essence but an ideological position constructed through
social inscription. This ontological contingency is reflected in both texts, where Linda Loman and Daisy
Buchanan function not as autonomous subjects but as roles scripted by the cultural fantasies of their eras.
Miller constructs Linda as the embodiment of domestic virtue, whose existence is almost entirely
relational: a wife, a mother, and the emotional anchor of Willy Loman’s increasingly fragile masculine
identity. Her dialogue is frequently deferential, structured around repetition—"attention, attention must be
paid”—which functions less as a plea for recognition than as a formalised ritual of emotional labour. Her
linguistic patterns reflect what Gubar describes as the “angel in the house”3 archetype: submissive and
self-effacing. Nevertheless, Linda’s final monologue problematises this reading. Delivered in a subdued
elegiac register, it breaks from the rhythmic symmetry of her earlier speech and exposes a deep-seated
rupture: “We’re free... We’re free...” The double repetition, echoing through the silence of the final scene,
destabilises her function as a passive mourner and subtly critiques the ideology that confined her.
Showalter observes that domestic containment often renders women “trapped in other people’s dreams”4;
Linda’s lament is a reiteration of her function and a muted rebellion against it. Fitzgerald, by contrast,
aestheticises Daisy through the male narrative voice, diminishing her to a symbolic fixture rather than a
character within Gatsby’s capitalist desire. Daisy’s voice—“full of money”—belongs not to a register of
speech but to a lexical field of capital and value; her femininity is coded as spectacle. The effect is
diegetic suppression: Daisy rarely speaks at length in her own right, and when she does, it is within a
discursive economy controlled by Nick Carraway’s narratorial perspective.
2
Ibid
3
Gilbert, S.M. and Gubar, S., 2020. The madwoman in the attic: The woman writer and the nineteenth-century
literary imagination. Yale University Press.
4
Showalter, E., 1999. A literature of their own: British women novelists from Brontë to Lessing. Princeton
University Press.
2
Gatsby” portray women as being shaped and controlled by
societal expectations, in line with Simone de Beauvoir’s idea
that “one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman”?
Beauvoir’s declaration that ‘one is not born, but rather becomes a woman’1 highlights the cultural forces
that construct feminine identity—an idea central to Miller’s Death of a Salesman and Fitzgerald’s The
Great Gatsby. Though formally distinct, Miller's realist tragedy and Fitzgerald's modernist novel depict
women shaped and constrained by patriarchal expectations. Femininity in these texts is not innate but
socially inscribed, defined by the ideological and historical forces that produced them. Both authors reveal
womanhood as a contingent identity imposed and sustained by cultural, economic, and narrative
structures.
1
De Beauvoir, S., 2023. The second sex. In Social theory re-wired. Routledge.
1
, Beauvoir’s formulation that ‘one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman’2 underpins a broader
existential argument that femininity is not an essence but an ideological position constructed through
social inscription. This ontological contingency is reflected in both texts, where Linda Loman and Daisy
Buchanan function not as autonomous subjects but as roles scripted by the cultural fantasies of their eras.
Miller constructs Linda as the embodiment of domestic virtue, whose existence is almost entirely
relational: a wife, a mother, and the emotional anchor of Willy Loman’s increasingly fragile masculine
identity. Her dialogue is frequently deferential, structured around repetition—"attention, attention must be
paid”—which functions less as a plea for recognition than as a formalised ritual of emotional labour. Her
linguistic patterns reflect what Gubar describes as the “angel in the house”3 archetype: submissive and
self-effacing. Nevertheless, Linda’s final monologue problematises this reading. Delivered in a subdued
elegiac register, it breaks from the rhythmic symmetry of her earlier speech and exposes a deep-seated
rupture: “We’re free... We’re free...” The double repetition, echoing through the silence of the final scene,
destabilises her function as a passive mourner and subtly critiques the ideology that confined her.
Showalter observes that domestic containment often renders women “trapped in other people’s dreams”4;
Linda’s lament is a reiteration of her function and a muted rebellion against it. Fitzgerald, by contrast,
aestheticises Daisy through the male narrative voice, diminishing her to a symbolic fixture rather than a
character within Gatsby’s capitalist desire. Daisy’s voice—“full of money”—belongs not to a register of
speech but to a lexical field of capital and value; her femininity is coded as spectacle. The effect is
diegetic suppression: Daisy rarely speaks at length in her own right, and when she does, it is within a
discursive economy controlled by Nick Carraway’s narratorial perspective.
2
Ibid
3
Gilbert, S.M. and Gubar, S., 2020. The madwoman in the attic: The woman writer and the nineteenth-century
literary imagination. Yale University Press.
4
Showalter, E., 1999. A literature of their own: British women novelists from Brontë to Lessing. Princeton
University Press.
2
