Compare how authors present the idea that men typically dominate relationships. (The Great Gatsby: F. Scott Fitzgerald - A song (Absent from Thee): John Wilmot - La Bella Dame sans Merci (John Keats)

It does seem, from the relationship between that of Tom and Myrtle, that men are the dominant characters within the relationship. After all, it is clear that Tom uses Myrtle purely as a tool to boost his ego from the lack of genuine care he pays her: ‘I want you to meet my girl.’ By using the possessive pronoun ‘my’, Tom demonstrates both the possessive nature he exerts over Myrtle, as well as showing a disregard for her personally through neglecting to use her name. Furthermore, Myrtle is evidently used as a trophy more than anything else; ‘he turned up in popular cafes with her and, leaving her at the table sauntered about, chatting with whomsoever he knew.’ By ‘leaving her at the table’, Tom is illustrating a lack of emotion invested in Myrtle as a person, it is more that he has a mistress because he can, due to the 1920’s still being a predominately patriarchal society. The idea of men dominating within relationships and society is also shown within John Wilmot’s ‘A song (Absent from thee’. Despite Fitzgerald’s novel and Wilmot’s poem being from two completely different societies, a similar theme is shared between the two. The 17^th Century was, however, a much more patriarchal society than that of 1920’s America, which was seen as a turning point of liberation (mainly for women). However, Tom and Daisy were ‘old money’, meaning that the liberal new ways of America would not have been welcomed by them, hence Tom’s behaviour towards that of Myrtle. Wilmot equally presents the idea that the male, who is the speaker of the poem, has possession over the woman but cannot be faithful to simply her. ‘When wearied with a world of woe/ To thy safe Bosom I retire.’ The repletion of the ‘w’ provides a wearing sound to that of the line, emphasising his point that he will return when he is tired of other women whilst she waits for him. The use of ‘safe’ demonstrates a similar idea to that of ‘The Great Gatsby’ which is that after men have rightfully fulfilled their desires they may return to the safety and the dependency of their wives/ woman as Tom does to Daisy in the end of the novel. It must be noted however that it is not necessarily the case that Myrtle is unaware what she is to Tom, as she herself is also married, and is arguably using Tom purely to experience being of an upper class, something she despises her husband for not providing to her: ‘I married him because I thought he was a gentleman…I thought he knew something about breeding.’ This is somewhat humorous as Myrtle herself is not anywhere close to the status of the old money class that Tom is from, despite her snobbish behaviour when in the apartment in New York. The use of ‘flounced’ and ‘pointlessly’ used by Nick when describing her demonstrates how she is revelling in the character of being a higher status that she really is. Hence leading to the argument, that perhaps Myrtle is also using Tom Buchanan is a similar way to how he uses her. So that she can show off and experience a world that without him, she would in no way be welcomed into. Similarly, it must be noted that within Wilmot’s poem it is only assumed that men are dominant as the speaker is purely male, there is no insight into what she herself thinks. However, it is the case still, that typically, men were the dominant ones within the 17^th Century as it was not acceptable and potentially entirely damning for a woman to run around with lots of different men in the same way that a man could with women. It is however the case that within Fitzgeralds’ novel, Daisy is seen as the main manipulator and with that comes an element of dominance, especially when regarding Gatsby. This idea is demonstrated by the depiction of Daisy as a green light: ‘a single, green light, minute and far away.’ The physical reaction of Gatsby to the lights, ‘he stretched out his arms…I could have sworn he was trembling,’ illustrates how much affect Daisy has upon Gatsby, to the point where he is ‘trembling’. Daisy does not demonstrate the same obsession over that of Gatsby as he does to her as his interest in him seems to never be for prolonged periods of time. ‘‘Oh let’s have fun,’ she begged him.’ This lines perhaps demonstrates a similar idea to that shown between Myrtle and Tom, that Daisy is using Gatsby, in this case, for fun. As soon as Gatsby shows any form of disinterest in what she wants to do, Daisy turns her attention elsewhere: ‘‘Have it your own way,’ she said. ‘Come on, Jordan.’’ It must also be noted that in the close of the novel, it is Gatsby who is ruined by the love he felt for Daisy: ‘Mr Gatsby is dead’, whilst she returns to the safety of Tom. This idea is similarly shown within that of Keats’ ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’ where the female is depicted to be both mesmerising and destructive: ‘and there she lulled me asleep’. The use of ‘lulled’ demonstrates the control that this woman has over the knight to the point where she can send him to sleep. Keats was a poet within the Romantic movement, meaning that he placed great emphasis upon beauty and dreams, as shown through his description of the ‘fairy’s child’. This idea of mesmerised, supernatural love, is additionally shown by Fitzgerald through the description of Gatsby as ‘possessed by intense life’. The use of ‘possessed’ highlight a similar to them of that of Keats’ ballad, of a helpless man unable to avoid the control of an otherworldly woman. The female domination within Keats’ ballad however is entirely atypical of the 18^th Century as it is the case that men were the dominant figures in society, shown perhaps, through the fact that one of the only poems were females leave the same form of destruction in their wake as men, is about a supernatural woman, not a real one.