Compare the presentation of women in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald and A View from the Bridge by Arthur Miller.

In both The Great Gatsby and A View from the Bridge, women are physical manifestations of male fantasy. Daisy Buchanan represents The American Dream, 'gleaming like silver' with a voice 'full of money,' while Catherine is to Eddie a symbol of purity achieved only by her upbringing in America, 'a grown woman [...] in the same house as a grown man,' oblivious as to her own promiscuity. Throughout both texts, male protagonists fail to snare the affection of their female counterparts, thus proving themselves unworthy of the life they have built for themselves. Daisy and Catherine fail to garner sympathy from readers, not only because they are the cause of, and thus blamed for, the protagonist's downfall, but because they are wholly unlikable characters. Daisy is nonchalant and materialistic; Catherine, naive and uncouth. Their one-dimensional nature extends to secondary female characters. While Eddie evolves as a character, with desires that grow and spiral out of control, Beatrice remains constant in her duty as his doting wife. Myrtle is dealt a similar hand, serving as little but a puppet to further a narrative. Her eventual death is undignified and crude, 'her left breast swinging loose like a flap,' her 'mouth wide open,' suggesting that her outward sexuality was the cause of her ultimate demise.