Essay On Daisy In The Great Gatsby

Society won’t let Gatsby and Daisy be together when they fall in love because Daisy comes from a family of old wealth, while Gatsby is the son of peasants. “For over a year,” as a young man, “he

Throughout the novel The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the character of Daisy Buchanan undergoes many noticeable changes. Daisy is a symbol of wealth and of promises broken. She is a character we grow to feel sorry for but probably should not.

In the novel, The Great Gatsby, the two central women presented are Daisy Buchanan and Myrtle Wilson. These two women, although different, have similar personalities. Throughout the novel, there are instances in which the reader feels bad for and dislikes both Daisy and Myrtle. These two women portray that wealth is better than everything else, and they both base their lives on it. Also the novel shows the hardships and difficulties they have in their marriages. They are never satisfied with what they have, and are always longing for more.

Gatsby does not realize that Daisy also represents the corruption that comes along with wealth. "Her voice is full of money, he suddenly said. That was it. I'd never understood it before. It was full of money--that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals' song of it. . . . High in a white Palace the King's daughter, the golden girl" (127). Gatsby becomes obsessed with Daisy and her voice that promised riches, but he does not realize that money was the only thing she offered. After listening to Tom, Nick describes Daisy and Tom as careless people who "smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made" (188). Daisy lets Gatsby take the blame for Myrtle’s death and shows no concern over Gatsby’s death showing her carelessness with people’s lives. Tom and Daisy’s actions indicate the corrupting effects that wealth can have on someone. They focus too much on appearance and materialism and ignore other people’s feelings and lives.

Gatsby has everything that he could wish for, except of love. Gatsby tried everything he could to achieve Daisy, but failed to do so. Gatsby always thought that Daisy actually loved him and that he was very close to achieving her. One time Gatsby showed Daisy all of his luxuries in the house. Daisy was impressed by how rich and wealthy Gatsby has become as time passed. Daisy says “never seen so many shirts like these” (87). This quote shows how Daisy likes materialistic things. Gatsby worked hard on his dream unlike Tom. Tom Buchanan who is the husband of Daisy has no purpose and goal in his life except his affair with Myrtle. He never really loved Daisy. On the other hand when Gatsby showed all of his English shirts Daisy begins to cry and they plan their future plans of meeting each other. We can see how Daisy is attracted to Gatsby simply because of his wealth. She loves Gatsby but she loves his money more then she actually loves him. This goes to show how people’s mentality worked in the 1920’s. Daisy, Gatsby, and all other characters live a very superficial life. Gatsby wants to achieve Daisy by the means of fortune and how Daisy is attracted to Gatsby because of his wealth.

Today, as the rain was tapping on my window, I stared out at the storm clouds casting shadows onto the long green fields of spring. As I was watching as the grass and the leaves in the trees on the horizon sway with the wind, my mind was recalled to a time that I’ve been trying to hide away for a long while now.

Behind every great man is a beautiful, charming maiden who holds his heart. What if this woman was not

Daisy stuck with Tom through years of his cheating, and when Nick invited her and Gatsby over so they could meet again, she had another chance. Gatsby did everything he could to become rich and to find Daisy. This meant that Daisy had everything she could have wanted. She had a man who loved her, who was wealthy, and all she had to do was end her marriage with Tom. What Gatsby had was new money, and Tom had old money. “What Daisy requires is not only money but old money. Old money is better than new, not because it can somehow buy more or because they will be more of it, but because it has fashioned the tastes, values, attitudes, matters, and intellects others possessors.”(Lathbury 59). Something about the old money was more valuable and appealing to Daisy, so she gave up Gatsby to be with Tom.

Daisy grew up spoiled due to the vast wealth she obtained from being ‘old money’, which caused her to become selfish and self-centred. Daisy had become selfish to the point that she has an expensive and materialistic desire or want. When Gatsby shows Daisy his mansion, she gazed in awe as “she admired […] the gardens, the sparkling odor of jonquils […] and the pale gold odor of kiss-me-at-the-gate.”(Fitzgerald,97) Daisy, all along, does not have feelings for Gatsby, but more for his money and expensive possessions, as she revealed her true self during Tom and Gatsby’s argument. Daisy is selfish even if money was not involved, as she does not feel grateful for Gatsby taking the blame for her killing Myrtle Wilson. For instance, when Nick tells Gatsby about Mrytle dying, Gatsby replies “’Yes,’ he said after the moment, ‘but of course I’ll say I was.’” (Fitzgerald, 154) When Daisy cried in Gatsby’s mansion, she was crying about her actions in killing Myrtle, meanwhile she does not care about Gatsby’s act of chivalry. Furthermore, Daisy takes advantage of Gatsby by taking Tom along to Gatsby’s party, when Daisy was personally invited to essentially go alone. When Gatsby saw Tom appearing to his party, Gastby with a light temper has a conversation with Tom. He says “I know your wife’, continued Gatsby, almost aggressively.”

Daisy Buchanan has a similar lifestyle to Tom, she’s wealthy ‘voice is full of money’ and always wore ‘white’ symbolising her purity and wealth. However as a woman of a higher class, there not much she can do in her ‘shallow life’, as she has the money but doesn’t know how to plan events ‘what do people plan?’. This shows that she is not content with her knowledge and understanding of life therefore even with money she isn’t ‘happy’. This leads her to ‘have an affair’ with an ex-lover whom she so adored before she married Tom ‘I did love him once – But I loved you too’. In the novel, Daisy only every seeks true love when she’s with Gatsby but ‘a rich girls don’t marry poor boys’, so due to this social difference between them, she knows the only place she will ever have security is with Tom. Tom describes their affair as a ‘presumptuous little flirtation’ because to Daisy, she knew she was never going to marry Gatsby but to Gatsby it was just never

Shallowness and hollowness of the upper class is shown in The Great Gatsby by Daisy’s love and addiction for wealth and money. Many people may look at Daisy and call her a ‘fool’ for her addiction to money. Eventually this not only corrupts her in the murder of Myrtle; however, her shallowness leads to the death of Jay Gatsby because of the carelessness of Daisy; which allowed Gatsby to take the blame of the death of Myrtle. Daisy represents the carelessness of most women in the Upper Class for her addiction to wealth and status. Daisy is characterized as ‘the smell of money’; therefore, it is obvious that Daisy loves Tom for his money rather than his personality. “ I hope she’ll be a fool- that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool,” (Fitzgerald, p23). This quote exemplifies the shallowness and hollowness of the woman in the novel. Daisy describes her daughter to Nick and Jordan as a girl who will be like her because she is in love and is manipulated into love with the idea of money. “They’re such beautiful shirts’ she sobbed, her voice muffled in the thick folds. ‘It makes me sad because I’ve never seen such-such beautiful shirts before” (Fitzgerald, p 89). This quotes further more proves the shallowness and hollowness of Daisy because she is in love with the belongings of Jay Gatsby rather than his actual personality. Daisy obviously values the

Gatsby had constantly in mind the date he lost Daisy; he dreamt of the day he could have her back and of the day she would confess her love to him. “Five years next November” (87) he told Daisy when they met again. Five years waiting for his true love, five years idealizing his girl, five years of constant work to acquire enough wealth to have her back. “No, we couldn’t meet. But both of us loved each other all the time…” (131) argued Gatsby to Tom, Daisy’s husband, explaining the eternal love he felt for Daisy and the love he though Daisy shared with him. Gatsby love did not end the day Daisy married Tom,

This lovely rich girl is known Daisy Buchanan, a women married to Tom Buchanan and also the love of Jay Gatsby’s life. The two met five years prior to her marriage, but were separated when Jay was forced to go off to war. The root of his desire for wealth occurs back to when Daisy’s parents did not approve of Gatsby for their daughter due to the fact that he came from a poor family. Jay is once again blinded, this time by the beauty and grace of Daisy and fails to see that Daisy is not who she appears to once be. He craves her for the realization of his golden family in his perfect dream, but really Daisy is far from that.

Daisy Buchanan and Jay Gatsby’s relationship was damaged by their contrasting social classes, but also because he had a lack of status and wealth. In relation to this Daisy married Tom for his wealth and status not for his love, which suggests Daisy is a materialistic character is more concerned about her money and possessions than she is about intellectual and spiritual objects. “Gatsby is an idealist, he seeks for

He felt their presence all about the house, pervading the air with the shades and echoes of still vibrant emotions” (149). Gatsby felt that Daisy’s glamour and wealth must have made her attractive to other men, “it increased her value in his eyes” and held more appeal than her love for him. However, at the same time, Daisy 's desires are also driven by wealth, but she is not attracted to the new money that Gatsby has. Tom’s old money is much more appealing to Daisy. The two men fight over Daisy and in the end she chooses Tom because of his historic wealth.