Daisy Buchanan and Myrtle Wilson are two key characters in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. Like the other characters in the novel, they each have their own circle of life, but they overlap in serious ways.They both allow their wealth or attraction to wealth to corrupt themselves which leads to significant carelessness. While Daisy Buchanan allows her wealth to corrupt her into becoming careless, Myrtle Wilson allows her attraction to wealth cause her to become corrupt and careless as well. Daisy and Myrtle are both very unhappy with their lives because of their husbands. As Daisy grew up with money, she then was drawn to marry money as well, so how could Tom Buchanan not be the perfect match? Daisy Buchanan is married to Tom, but extremely …show more content…
Tom then expressed that he “hate(s) that word hulking” (12), but Daisy repeats the word “hulking” (12) right back to him to show her pure disrespect for him. This just radiates her carelessness as she publicly announces her irritation with Tom. Tom allows her to be disrespectful as he continues to still do so much for her. Because of this Daisy believes girls can just be “little fools” (17) and do whatever they want. She believes this because Tom does everything for her and she knows he has the money to do anything for her. Through her displeasure with her marriages, she has an affair. While Tom and Myrtle have their secret affair, Daisy is having a secret affair too. Daisy has an affair with Jay Gatsby. She allows her corruption of wealth to cause her to feel superior over others, and therefore she is drawn to Jay Gatsby’s riches. If her rich husband is not loving her, then how could she not allow another rich man to love her? Later in the novel, F. Scott Fitzgerald uses Daisy’s driving to show her carelessness and superiority. As they are coming back from New York, Daisy Buchanan is driving Gatsby’s car as she speeds and swerves all over
When comparing Daisy and Myrtle it is important to note that they are both extremely unhappy with the person they are married to. Both woman are having affairs, Daisy with gatsby and Myrtle with Tom.
Myrtle eventually had similar goals as Gatsby, but her life did not begin the same way. She was of the lower class of society and married a simple man. The two pursued a poor life, but Myrtle’s husband George was a decent man. Nevertheless, Myrtle became unsatisfied, and when the opportunity arose to better the quality of her life, she took it. Daisy’s husband Tom, an unfaithful, rough man not very committed to his marriage, began an affair with Myrtle.
Wanting to be with her true love again, she sneaks visits with him without Tom knowing. Just like Myrtle had, Daisy torn into her own marriage. She loved both men, but as soon as it was found out, the men began fighting for her. “I glanced at Daisy who was staring terrified between Gatsby and her husband…” (Fitzgerald 143). This isn’t what Daisy wanted at all. At some point Daisy loved Tom, and it’s very likely that she still does, regardless of all of his cheating. Living a life of riches for so long has affected her with affluenza, blinding her morals as it did to Tom. When someone already has everything they could ever ask for, they’re still going to want more. Something to work for, or else life becomes boring as Daisy points out many times in the novel. When both men she loves are threatening each other and fighting for her fondness she’s realized what she’s done wrong. She’s fallen into the same trap as Myrtle, being stuck between two men, but she still has feelings for Tom.“I saw them in Santa Barbara when they came back and I thought I’d never seen a girl so mad about her husband. If he left the room for a minute she’d look around uneasily and say ‘Where’s Tom gone?’” (Fitzgerald 83). Gatsby tries to convince Daisy that she loves him and only him, yet Daisy actually loves them both. After Daisy was married she could think about anything except Tom, while Gatsby has spent the five
Scott Fitzgerald, two characters, Myrtle Wilson and Jay Gatsby suffered although different in social class appearance and gender, suffer from the inability to differentiate between illusions and reality, causing their downfalls. Myrtle and Gatsby have similar goals, but different ambitions. Gatsby wants to achieve wealth for the sole purpose of regaining his previous love interest, Daisy, where as Myrtle wants to obtain wealth for her selfish desire of status and integration into the upper class. However, they both begin their journeys to downfall when they sacrifice all morality for this wealth. Gatsby becomes a criminal, and seduces a married woman and ultimately break up her family for his own selfish goal of winning his old love back. While, Myrtle begins an affair with Tom Buchanan, a wealthy upper class man, who abuses her emotionally and physically, although her husband Wilson honestly loves and respects, solely because she falls in love with the idea of status and riches which Tom could give her. It is their incapability to separate their desired illusions from reality, which leads them to their
In the Great Gatsby and Death of a Salesman, many had pursued the American dream of material wealth and others could not. Tom and Daisy Buchanan are a married couple that seem to have everything they could possibly want and need. They had pursued the American dream of material wealth. Their lives were full of every materialistic object that one could imagine of, however they were very unhappy and seek to change their way of living. Tom drifts off to "forever seeking a little wistfully for the dramatic turbulence of some irrecoverable football game"(Fitzgerald 10) and he begins to read "deep books with long words in them"(17) just so that he could have a topic conversation with others. Tom is married to Daisy Buchanan; however he has an apartment in New York and has an affair with Myrtle Wilson there. Daisy Buchanan is one who is empty on the inside, and she demonstrates herself to the world as if she is oblivious to her husband’s affair with Myrtle. Daisy has no drive, ambition or desires that she wants to complete in her life; she is a characterless person, with a beating heart...
Daisy and Roxie both are very careless women who think only of themselves. They trample all over other people without giving a second glance behind them, and they are selfish women who never think or care about anyone else. Their only differences are in the different ways that they are selfish. Roxie pursues her selfish endeavors by trying to become a big star, getting the spotlight on her and doing everything she can to keep it on her. First Roxie steals Velma Kelly’s place in the magazines; then when another girl starts attracting attention, Roxie faints and it “slips out” that she hopes the fall didn’t hurt the baby. The director develops Roxie through using dim, soft lighting on her when she is unknown to everyone and then using bright light and flashy clothes on Roxie when she becomes famous. Roxie also has a very sassy, uncaring attitude on screen which helps develop her character into a selfish girl who thinks only of herself. Daisy pursues her selfish needs by leading on both Tom and Gatsby—while in reality she doesn’t love either of them, staying with Tom simply because he h...
In the novel The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, there are many characters in which each symbolizes their own life lesson and message. For example, Daisy Buchanan is a young woman, who is one of the characters that most of the story revolves around. In the novel, Daisy maintains the illusion of innocence, but her actions and words are corrupt. The Great Gatsby scratches the surface of Daisy as a character, but looking deeper into the meaning of things a person can see who she truly is. To the naked eye Daisy is a confused and lovestruck woman, but deep down Daisy may be something more sinister. In this novel Daisy mentions that at that time in age the “only thing a woman can be in this world is a beautiful little fool” (pg. 17) which
In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald presents three women in an especially bad light. Daisy Fay Buchanan, the narrator's cousin, is the most obvious. Daisy is selfish and materialistic. She married her husband, Tom, because he was wealthy when he proposed to her. She ignored her true love, Jay Gatsby, because he was poor; this fact is evident when the two meet again after years apart and Daisy sees that Gatsby is rich now. Gatsby bought the house right across the bay from Daisy so he could be near her (Fitzgerald 83). Daisy admires all of his possessions and even considers leaving her husband for him, but in the end remains with Tom. This action is evidence of Daisy's selfishness; the moment of their reunion means everything to Gatsby and nothing to Daisy, except for a game to help Daisy pass the time during her idle days (Magill 1144). The selfishness of Daisy is a detail that thrusts her into the role of a villain in the novel.
In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby was born into a life of poverty and as he grew up he became more aware of the possibility of a better life. He created fantasies that he was too good for his modest life and that his parents weren’t his own. When he met Daisy, a pretty upper class girl, his life revolved around her and he became obsessed with her carefree lifestyle. Gatsby’s desire to become good enough for Daisy and her parents is what motivates him to become a wealthy, immoral person who is perceived as being sophisticated.
Throughout the Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Myrtle is a victim of her own desperation. This sense of despair stems from her marriage to George Wilson. As soon as she marries George she knows she made a mistake and she pays for that mistake every second of her life. This despair that originates from her marriage then translates into her cheating on her husband with a married man, Tom Buchanan and completely ignoring him. Due to her obvious desperation, Tom is able to boss her around on numerous occasions and makes her do what he wants because of her desperation.
The marriage of Tom and Daisy Buchanan is arguably the most tumultuous relationship within the novel. Tom spends his time with two different women, both his wife Daisy and a mistress by the name of Myrtle Wilson. Tom’s division of time between the two allows him to refrain from reaching any significant level of emotional intimacy with either w...
The dinner party scene also introduces the theme of societal expectation by contrasting two very different characters: Daisy Buchanan and Jordan Baker. Daisy is portrayed as an almost angelic or fairy-like figure, first seen lounging on the couch: “buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon” (12). One could infer that the phrase ‘anchored balloon’ symbolizes the constraints and expectations placed upon women during the 1920’s. In this way, Daisy represents the life led by traditional women during this era. Expectations were as such; women were to marry young, have children, devote their lives to raising families and were completely dependent on their husbands. Daisy’s dependence on Tom is represented by her childlike characteristics: “She
Daisy is as fragile as a flower. Daisy Buchanan is known to be the beauty of Louisville, yet she is very weak and immature and doesn't think of the consequences of her actions. Daisy is a 19 year old young lady in the book, pressuring herself to get married. She believes it is the best thing for her, but does not think of how being marrying so young might affect her. According to Nick; "For Daisy was young and her artificial world was redolent of orchids and pleasant, cheerful snobbery and orchestras... and all the time something within her was crying for a decision." (151) Daisy was ready to settle down and get married, but not just with any guy. She wanted the best, richest, good-looking, most powerful bachelor in town. What Daisy did not know was that marrying Tom Buchanan was the worst mistake she could make. Wild rumors that her husband was cheating on her, and about her marriage spread across Chicago, and Daisy knew that they were true. Her husband Tom was having an affair with this women named Myrtle Wilson, and showing h...
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.
During the confrontation between Gatsby and Tom Buchanan about Daisy, she is talked about like she is a possession to be won over. During the argument Nick “glances at Daisy who was staring terrified between Gatsby and her husband” (Fitzgerald, page 143). Gatsby and Buchanan tell Daisy what to say instead of allowing her to tell her own truths, and if she does start to speak up for herself she is quickly quieted down. Daisy states at the beginning of the novel while talking about finding out the sex of her child that, “I’m glad it’s a girl. And I hope she’ll be a fool – that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool” (Fitzgerald, page 16). Daisy is the only female character in the novel who understands that no matter what a woman accomplishes, she will always be downcasted based on her gender. This outlook is what allows her to be controlled by Gatsby and Buchanan, because she doesn’t believe that anything she can do will make her more of a human to them. Myrtle on the other hand, while still a married woman, isn’t able to see her powerlessness. She feels powerful enough to stand up to Tom and chant Daisy’s name over and over again until he breaks her nose (Fitzgerald, page 37). This scene demonstrates the way that men handled women if they ever did feel confident enough to speak for themselves. One final scene from the novel that really