Great Gatsby - Daisy
The novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a story about money and "true" love, revolving around a man named Jay Gatsby. Gatsby spends his life in pursuit of his dream of winning wealth and the love of the beautiful Daisy Fay Buchanan, a character based on Fitzgerald's own wife. Unfortunately, as Gatsby discovers, Daisy is not worthy of such devotion. Despite her attractive appearance and the refined mannerisms she possesses, her true personality is overtly self-centered, careless, and incapable of sustained loyalty. Because of this, Daisy plays an important role in developing the theme of the novel, which is that wealth leads to the corruption of a person. At first glance, Daisy seems to be a typical wealthy woman of the 1920s; she is beautiful, charming, and sophisticated. Her classic beauty is one of the first things Nick notices about her, as he describes her lovely face, bright eyes, and passionate mouth (Fitzgerald 9). Her name also indicates her fairytale-princess appearance. The beautiful flower that she shares the name of is fresh and bright, a symbol of spring and youthfulness, and Daisy shares those qualities. Although she is already in her twenties, she still often acts like a teenager. She tries
Her affair and the resulting conflict also illuminated her character flaws of indecision and shallowness. Fitzgerald used Daisy here to show how the motives of the rich were opposite of what they should have been. She cannot imagine what she will do the next days and years of her life (Fitzgerald 118), because she has no long-term goals. As the apostle Paul once wrote, "The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil," (Bible 1). Daisy's many immoral qualities all stem from her love of money. Because of her wealth, and her resulting high social status, Daisy does not feel the need to take responsibility for any of her actions. This wealth is what made her so attractive to Gatsby and many of her past suitors, and her desire for more wealth led her to marry affluent Tom Buchanan, instead of waiting for monetarily-challenged Gatsby to return from the war. Fitzgerald uses Daisy's selfish actions to show that rich people were too careless and that they amazingly never felt sorry for making someone else bear the blame for their mistakes. Some mothers feel that their children give them purpose in life, but Daisy is totally indifferent to her child. Literally, Daisy "smashed up" one other character and indirectly ended the life of another, all without taking any responsibility for her actions. When confronted with the situation, having no way to avoid it, Daisy's pathetic "solution" was simply to back out of the situation by saying she had loved both of them (Fitzgerald 133). According to Gatsby, even Daisy's voice rings of money (Fitzgerald 120). Daisy's affair was another illustration of immoral behavior caused by wealth. Even her daughter Pammy does not give Daisy anything to live for. Unfortunately though, Daisy desired those material things, and she could not leave Tom for her true love.
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