Daisy in The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald

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Daisy in The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald

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.

Born Daisy Fay in Louisville, Kentucky, Daisy was always the princess in the tower, the golden girl that every man dreamed of possessing. ?She dressed in white, and had a little white roadster, and all the day long the telephone rang in her house and excited young officers from Camp Taylor demanded the privilege of monopolizing her that night,? (79). Daisy is beautiful, rich, and appears very innocent as a young woman, although it is later suggested that she was quite promiscuous.

While she was the object of every man?s desire, Daisy was madly in love with Jay Gatsby. Daisy tried to escape to New York to see Gatsby off to war but was prevented by her parents because Jay did not meet their standards. They disapproved of him because he did not have as much money or come from a family in the same social class as their own.

Though Daisy wrote letters to Gatsby and promised to remain faithful she married Tom Buchanan from Chicago the very next year. Tom was incredibly wealthy and ?the day before the wedding he gave her a string of pearls valued at three hundred and fifty thousand dollars,? (80). Daisy seemed to be madly in love with her new husband and looked to be very happy.

Daisy has been married to Tom for quite a considerable amount of time and they have already had a daughter by the time Daisy?s cousin, Nick, reappears in Daisy?s life. Mrs. Buchanan is extremely friendly with her cousin and always seems glad to see h...

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...nted everyone to feel sorry for Daisy. However, one finds it hard to feel sorry for someone as well off as herself. She is a symbol of money and the corruption it brings. One must be careful not to identify Daisy with the green light at the end of her dock. The green light is the promise, the dream. Daisy herself is much less than that. Even Gatsby must realize that having Daisy in the flesh is much, much less than what he imagined it would be when he fell in love with the idea of her.

While Daisy Buchanan undergoes numerous changes throughout the novel The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, she remains a symbol of wealth, broken promises, and dreams corrupted. While one finds it easy to feel sorry for her, she is in no means the victim of the novel.

Work Cited

F. Scott Fitzgerald. The Great Gatsby. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1992

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