Modernity, Patriarchy, and Female Consciousness in Fitzgerald and Mahfouz

Abstract

This study explores the complex relationship between modernity, material desire, and female identity in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and Naguib Mahfouz’s Zuqāq al-Midaq (1947) translated into Midaq Alley (1966). It is intended to show how female characters actively pursue social mobility and personal autonomy within rapidly transforming societies of the early twentieth century, rather than viewing women merely as passive victims of patriarchal oppression.

Through a comparative approach grounded in feminist and materialist criticism, the paper investigates how characters such as Daisy Buchanan, Myrtle Wilson, and Hamida navigate the promises of modern life while confronting gender ideology and the persistent constraints of class hierarchy. The observation to emerge from this paper is that modernity offers these women the illusion of freedom and upward mobility, yet ultimately reproduces the very structures of power that limit their agency.