Floating Women: F. Scott Fitzgerald's Josephine Perry Stories as Social Commentary

The Duality of the "New Woman"

F. Scott Fitzgerald's Josephine Perry Stories as Social Commentary

F. Scott Fitzgerald's life is a tragic example of both sides of the American Dream-the joys of young love, wealth and success, and the tragedies associated with excess and failure. By 1925 he was known primarily as the historian of the Jazz Age (which he named) and chronicler in slick American magazines of the American "flapper." Fitzgerald said, shortly after the success of his first novel, This Side of Paradise, that an author "should write for the youth of his generation, the critics of the next, and for the schoolteachers of following generations."

With this maxim as a mission statement, Fitzgerald did write literature that defined his "lost generation." Within his stories, plays and novels, he also sought to define and perhaps reconcile the injustices of women's, role in society-a role that was changing, and having a tempestuous effect on society through that change. Throughout the works of Fitzgerald women play an important but secondary role. What is important about Fitzgerald's female characters is their effect on the men in the stories.

The era in which Fitzgerald's stories take place served to both liberate and imprison young women, and it is the failings of the early flapper generation of the 1910s that defined the "New Woman" of the Jazz Age generation of the 1920s. For this reason, it is important, when examining the roles of women in Fitzgerald's writing to include the Josephine Perry stories. This collection of six tales is set in the pre-Jazz Age "ragtime years" and an examination of these stories uncovers themes which are revised and expanded upon in Fitzgerald's later works-works which enjoy greater popularity and as a result, more prolific and rigorous criticism.

Skimming through the national magazines in the 1920s, readers might have guessed that the libertines had captured the country. Zelda Fitzgerald, wife of the author, had expressed the view that the modern woman had "the right to experiment with herself as a transient, poignant figure who will be dead tomorrow." The women's suffrage movement, the decline of organized religion, the first world war, the popularity of newly-minted trends in fashion and culture, like the Gibson Girls, as well as such culture-defining events as the Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire in 1905, which gave birth to the labor movement, and all bubbled in the cauldron of the American City and gave birth to a proto-feminist movement, spearheaded by the concept of the "New Woman."

Fitzgerald had a keen eye for social movements and he chronicled the paradoxical role of the New Woman in these years. Despite the trappings of New Womanhood, women's perceived worth and social standing in those times was directly tied to the men they were associated with. Because of this, women were set into competition with each other in games played out in tearooms, dance floors and debutante balls, with the ultimate prize being marriage.

Many critics take umbrage at Fitzgerald's portrayal of women as less-important characters on life's stage, but others see this as an accurate portrayal of the New Woman's plight. Critic Sarah Beebe Fryer, in her critical study, Fitzgerald's New Women: Harbingers of Change, draws on numerous historical studies to establish the plight of women and a definition of the "New Woman" of the postwar decade in America, finally making this assertion in her introduction: "They are a curious blend of confidence and uncertainty, for they live on the threshold of a new era and still feel the influence of the old order, which stubbornly insists on subordinating them to men....[T]hey try very hard to accept themselves for who they are and to enjoy their lives to the fullest as they proudly-even defiantly-struggle to develop and preserve their integrity." In Fryer's opinion, Fitzgerald's female characters do conform to this representation. Other than Fryer's analysis, attempts to understand Fitzgerald's female characters by critics and biographers, mostly male, center on those women's character flaws: poor housekeeping skills, vanity and materialism being the most often cited.

Fryer sees Fitzgerald, first, as being accurate as a social historian in portraying women in the 1920's, and second, as demonstrating sensitivity toward the plight of women in his time. His novels, she maintains, "chart the progression of the social and sexual revolution of the 1920's." Fryer supports these assertions with careful analyses of the major Fitzgerald heroines-Gloria Gilbert, Daisy Buchanan, Nicole Diver, and Kathleen Moore-whom she sees as believable, three-dimensional characters. Countering the charge by some critics that Fitzgerald's women are superficial, Fryer notes that "Fitzgerald has drawn female characters who struggle with conflicts common to many twentieth-century women who are brought up to marry, not work." In varying degrees, these characters are all victims of a patriarchal society which has taught them that they are dependent.

Josephine Perry, however, was Fitzgerald's first construction of the New Woman. At first glance she seems to fit the Fitzgerald mold: vain, spoiled, rich and shallow, with a habit of leaving distressed men in her wake. But, unlike the men in the Fitzgerald stories she fails to mature, or experience personal growth in any way. In the five stories that make up the Josephine series, Fitzgerald offers an explanation of why he feels that women will not fulfill the promise of New Womanhood.

Through this five-story exposition Fitzgerald not only defines certain aspects of and shortcomings associated with New Womanhood, but also the culture that shaped an entire generation of women who came into age in the years leading up to WWI, when most of the social turbulence commonly associated with the 1920s was already in place. These "ragtime" years are important to the development of American culture and the proto-feminist movement that came on the heels of women's suffrage, the decline of organized religion, and the emergence of labor as a political force in

In the initial story of the series, "First Blood," Josephine is introduced as a bold and beautiful 16-year-old girl who is an "unconscious pioneer" (Basil and Josephine 188) of the 1920sflapper. She is the "newest thing" in Chicago and is determined to be "the belle of Chicago, the "Golden Girl of the Golden West" (220). She goes on to call her mother a fool, mock a wedding ceremony, engage in necking in cars and steal her sister's 22-year-old boyfriend. She is, at least seemingly, the quintessential New Woman: at war with the prior generation, shedding all Victorian gentility and entirely sure of herself. Yet, by the end of the series, in fact, in the last line of the last story, she in a state of extreme distress, asks herself, "What have I done?"

When one takes the Josephine series as one complete work, it can be seen that Fitzgerald has become aware of the under girding flaws in the concept of New Womanhood, and has brought these forth for a legion of faithful readers, whom I propose, he wanted to educate and lead in a more equitable and promising direction.

Josephine can not develop because females at this time did not have the same opportunity to develop and mature as men did. She has been brought up in a world run by men, and when Josephine is making out with her older sister's boyfriend, (a very flapper-like thing to do) the story's narrator notes, "she was in the world of being alone with a male, a world in which she had moved surely since she was eight years old" (196). Clearly inferred by this passage is the fact that the world of which we speak is "that" world-not Josephine's world, and that her ability to move within a male-dominated society will in turn define her success. Josephine defines the plight of the New Woman-she yearns for independence but is programmed to be dependent; as the narrator of "First Blood" states, she is imbued with "the necessity of being near something strong" (255).

In the next story, "A Woman with a Past," Josephine is further educated about men's strength and power, and how these things define the worth of a woman. Josephine attends a ritzy private school in the East and strives for social attainment. She is disturbed by the fact that a female classmate-"despite her thick ankles and rather too pinkish face" (230) is able to climb socially because she is the girlfriend of football star and Skull and Bones club member Dudley Knowlten. She becomes aware of her own subordination, as well as that of the women around her and remarks that "a girl took on the importance of the man who brought her."

It is in "A Woman with a Past" that Fitzgerald points out another fatal flaw in the proto-feminist conventions of the ragtime years: that there is no solidarity among women, and thus their power is sapped. Fitzgerald's women are pitted in competition with each other, a contest that takes shape in the social events of the moneyed classes and in which the endgame is marriage. These New Women never consider the idea of solidarity, which would ease the effects of their subordination. Critic Rochelle Elstein comments on this phenomenon, saying "The camaraderie and good fellowship that pervades the stories of young men...is absent from the Josephine stories." "Enduring friendships" Elstein adds, "seem to be a male prerogative."

The next two stories in the series offer Josephine an opportunity, at least on the surface, to learn, grow and fully realize the potential encapsulated in her youthful exuberance and new-found freedom. In "A Nice Quiet Place," Josephine's parents, concerned about her seemingly endless partying, send her to the Michigan woods, which for Josephine, is akin to a penitentiary. Her hope is rekindled only when a man appears out of the woods. Josephine pursues this person and the tale becomes another story of love maneuvering and intrigue. In "A Snobbish Story" she meets a new kind of man, a playwright, and, in the parlance of that day, a "Bohemian."

At first brush, John Bailey appears to be the man who will expand Josephine's thinking. After meeting him, she starts calling herself a "radical" and an "artist" and even encourages her father to spend his wealth in philanthropic endeavors. She compares men whom she considered likely prospects for marriage with her new beau, "she saw how thin and meager Howard Page was beside him" (264) and refuses to perform in her hometown vaudeville show, and is described by the story's narrator as an "eager convert."

But after Bailey's wife tries to commit suicide, Josephine retreats to her father's wealth and position and is told by him "young people had better stay with their own kind." A mere half-hour later, she has forgotten Bailey, is trying on a new gown for a debutante ball and has "thrown in her lot with the rich and powerful of the world forever" (269).

In the last tale of the Josephine series, Fitzgerald introduces the concept of "emotional bankruptcy" and titles the story by that name. Josephine finally finds all that she is looking for, man-wise, in the person of Edward Dicer, a French Army pilot home on leave. Dicer is strong, distinctive and is the center of attention-everything that Josephine yearns for. The narrator underscores this feeling by saying, "All her life had pointed to this moment," and Josephine whispers to herself, "This is it at last." (280).

Then, at the supreme moment, when Dicer confesses his love for her, Josephine, instead of feeling exhilarated and satisfied, feels nothing but a "vast, tragic apathy" and as Dicer leaves angrily she comes to the "awful, awful realization that..." she is emotionally bankrupt, unable to feel emotion, and then ends the series by wailing, "What have I done to myself!"

Although Fitzgerald does not provide an answer Josephine's question, he does give readers clues to piece together an explanation for why she asks it. It is clear that Josephine's absorption in trivial amusements has left little foundation upon which to develop her character. Critic Quentin Martin, in his critique "The First Emotional Bankrupt," recognizes this development and cites other criticism that points out similar situations in which male characters have had different reactions: Basil Duke Lee is also lured by romance and social attainment, and in the introduction to The Basil and Josephine Stories, it is proposed by editors Kuehl and Bryer that although Basil, at the end of his sequence has also lost love, he has "ambition, struggle and glory" (185) to fall back on, as do other characters like Amory Blaine, who after losing love, learns that he can "roam, grow and rebel" and says that he is "safe now, free from all hysteria." Josephine can not progress because she, despite her new-found freedoms, can only live vampirically from the life-blood of men.

This phenomenon is cited by historians and social critics like William O'Neill who is quoted in Martin's piece as writing, "Though the Progressive era was the greatest age in history for women, women were still discriminated against." Martin expands on this, saying that, "The supposed Roaring '20s and ragtime '10s were in fact dominated by people who clung tightly to the traditional moorings of custom and value." A flapper in the 1920s, like a post-feminist today, hovers between defiance and compliance. The "soccer mom" phenomenon is a throwback to a traditional values system, but views women as people capable of charting direction and making decisions without threatening male dominance. Soccer moms embrace the permanency of home and hearth that the previous generation fled, but seek to be an equal partners in these, rather than commodities.

I propose that Fitzgerald was aware of the paradox in the emerging status of women and offered a kind of instruction to women through these stories. I feel that he is saying, "don't be fooled by the changes on the surface, work together with other women and change first yourselves, and then the society around you."

Fitzgerald revisits two of the concepts pioneered in the Josephine stories in his later work: the fact that women's worth and social status are defined by the men they are associated with, and also the concept of emotional bankruptcy as an outfall of an ill-intentioned quest for social status.

In The Great Gatsby the character of Myrtle Wilson is defined by her marriage to Tom, the gas-station proprietor, and Gatsby tries to remake himself into a rich and powerful man so that he might win the hand of Daisy. It is Nick, the middle-class everyman without particular allegiance to either the privileged or working class, who has enough objectivity to comprehend the awful irony that Gatsby's dream has been futile from the beginning: he will never be accepted into the world of old money that Daisy could never leave.

Jay Gatsby has prepared himself to receive all that has to offer and believes naively that he can have the embodiment of it, the wealthy Louisville debutante Daisy Fay, the only "nice" girl he has ever known, if he can but find the currency to buy his way into her life. Daisy's social status hinges on the "old money" her husband and pedigree offer, and she is defined by that association, as the poor and weak Tom Wilson also defines Myrtle Wilson. All the women in the novel are superficial: Wilson's wife collects the dog and all sorts of other gifts with no real structure to them, Daisy is vapid and superficial and, seemingly liberated as a golf star, actually seems inexperienced in the ways of love and fails to attract Nick.

These characters represent what Josephine would likely have become had her fictional life had continued. Tom and Daisy, locked in what is described in the first Josephine story as a "loveless marriage," based on social conventions, have become bored with each other and are engaged in extramarital affairs. The men of Fitzgerald's Jazz Age are unable to be happy with wives that are the faulted manifestation of idealized dreams and the women of these stories are unable to be happy within stereotypical roles placed on them by a society that is uncomfortable with true freedom.

In Fitzgerald's "Crack-up essays" we see that he shares many traits with an emotionally bankrupt Josephine. He says that he is "mortgaging himself both physically and spiritually" like a man "overdrawing at the bank." Like the Josephine stories were a criticism of the prewar flapper generation, the crack-up essays were an extension of this: social criticism (masquerading as self-criticism) of the 1920's Jazz Age. In these essays, Fitzgerald writes that society has "engaged in the most expensive orgy in history," that its "hedonistic behavior" and "universal preoccupation with sex" as well as a "careless and reckless way of life" had caused society to overreach itself and implode. "Character," a nineteenth-century concept, had been replaced with "personality," and also consumption. Arthur Mizener, who collected Fitzgerald's letters, found a more candid portrayal of this school of thought (sans the protective covering of the fictional short story) in a letter from Fitzgerald to his daughter. In this missive Fitzgerald writes "my generation of radicals and breakers-down never found anything to take the place of the old virtues of work and courage, and the old graces of courtesy and politeness."

Josephine serves as an emblem of a generation that lost itself through emotional bankruptcy brought on by waste, extravagance and an inability to understand itself. The emotionally bankrupt prototype that we see in Josephine becomes a full-grown woman in Daisy, and the problems that first come to the surface in the Josephine stories find their culmination in Gatsby, The Crack-Up and, interestingly, in Fitzgerald's personal life.

Zelda Fitzgerald, his wife, would probably be called a feminist today, but when she was alive, she made herself a flapper. In 1926, Fitzgerald's charmingly wild wife told an interviewer that she hoped her daughter's generation would be even "jazzier" than her own: "I think a woman gets more happiness out of being gay, light-hearted, unconventional, mistress of her own fate, than out of a career that calls for hard work, intellectual pessimism and loneliness. I don't want Pat (their daughter) to be a genius, I want her to be a flapper, because flappers are brave and gay and beautiful."

Given the descent into mental illness (Zelda) and alcoholism (Scott) that these two later experienced it is clear that Fitzgerald had a stake in charting the negative outfall of adopting the libertine values and carefree lifestyle that he and his wife stood as spokespeople for.

Fitzgerald's portrayal of women, first in the Josephine stories and later in The Great Gatsby and"The Crack-up" essays, does not as many critics believe, present a patriarchal and condescending view of womanhood. It is instead, an accurate portrayal of the challenges faced by women in the Jazz Age, and Fitzgerald's work, like all great literature holds a mirror up to the society that spawned it, and is also relevant today, as we as a society grapple with many of the same issues as Americans in Fitzgerald's time.

Works Cited:

Elstein, Rochelle E. "Fitzgerald's Josephine Stories: The End of Romantic Allusion" American Literature 51 (1979): 69-83

Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Basil and Josephine Stories. Ed. Jackson Bryer and John Keuhl. Scribner's 1973. The Great Gatsby. Scribner's 1924

Martin, Quentin E. "The First Emotional Bankrupt" The F. Scott Fitzgerald ReviewVol. 1. Ed. Prigozy, Bryer, Wanlass.

Hofstra

University

Press: 2002.

Mizener, Arthur. The Far Side of

Paradise
: A Biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald Riverside-Houghten. 1965

Nagel, James. "Initiation and Intertextuality in The Basil and Josephine Stories" Ed. Jackson Byer.

University
of

Missouri

Press. 1996 (265-290)