How Has Fitzgerald Presented The Character Of Daisy In 'The Great Gatsby'?

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                                                                                Ian Channing

How Has Fitzgerald Presented The Character Of Daisy In ‘The Great Gatsby’?

In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s ‘The Great Gatsby we are told the story of the lives of Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan and their relationship through the eyes of the narrator, Nick Carraway.  Gatsby was once in love with Daisy, but after they became separated Daisy meets and marries Tom, a wealthy stockbroker from West Egg who is placed highly in society.  Gatsby spends the next five years forever dreaming of the day when he would once again meet up with Daisy and rekindle his relationship with her.  However, his dream is not to play out the way he intends it to, with Daisy finally choosing Tom over him, and leading to Gatsby’s death.

In ‘The Great Gatsby’ Daisy is arguably the most controversial character in the book and her character can be interpreted in a variety of ways.  On the one hand it can be said that Daisy Buchanan is the charming, sweet and innocent victim of the novel, and on the other it can be argued that Daisy is a reckless, manipulative character, who is the prime cause of the tragedy.

The name Daisy is symbolic.  We often associate daisies with childhood and delicacy, and the colour of their petals, white, makes us think of innocence and purity, whilst the appearance of them is pretty.  The yellow centre of a daisy could also be used to represent the golden heart of Daisy’s character.  However, the only thing flower-like about Daisy is her pretty looks, which are deceptive in making people believe she has these flower-like qualities about her.  The name Daisy is ironic for her character, instead of delicate she is destructive, instead of innocent she is guilty and instead of pure she is ‘the first notable anti-virgin of our (American) fiction’ as described by Leslie A. Fiedler.

The reader’s views on the character and personality of Daisy are likely to change throughout the novel as we are initially presented with a woman who, although shown to be slightly manipulative, is not significantly heartless in any way.  However, as the novel goes on Daisy’s other traits are exposed, with her shallow and self-concerned attitude being shown fully when she accidentally kills Myrtle and leaves Gatsby to take the blame for it.

Daisy’s first appearance in the novel is when the narrator, Nick, goes to visit her.  Our first impression of her is that she is pure, as she is wearing white, and that she is very delicate, as she is referred to as being like a balloon, ‘the two young women (Daisy and Jordan) ballooned slowly to the floor’.  However, instead of delicate, this idea of weightlessness can be seen as an early representation of the emptiness of her character.  F. Scott Fitzgerald here only really gives us an idea of how Daisy presents herself to the world and what she wants people to think of her, and the reader has to judge whether Nick’s perception is correct of how she truly is.  When Daisy meets Nick she laughs twice for no reason, ‘as if she had said something very witty’, which gives the reader the impression that she uses her laugh to hide behind.  Daisy also speaks very quietly to Nick, which he says is ‘only to make people lean towards her’.      

Even though it is presented as endearing, with Nick saying that even though her murmur was to make people lean towards her it ‘made it no less charming’, is does alert the reader to think that she could only do this as part of her allure, to make herself appear more charming and popular.  We also see how she makes Nick feel so welcomed by her ‘(Daisy) looking up into my face, promising that there was no one in the world she so much wanted to see’.  This shows to the reader how she can easily charm people and cast a spell over them.  It also partly explains why later on Gatsby is so in love with her, as he too has been made to believe that in Daisy’s eyes there is no one in the world that she would rather be with than him.  This is an example of the duality of her character, as noted by the critic Daniel Burke who writes that Daisy ‘is never the poor little innocent victim so many people believe her to be, but is a manipulative woman who knowingly uses her looks to achieve what she wants’.  Leslie A. Fiedler also focuses on how she uses her appearance to her advantage, and goes further, linking Daisy’s manipulative powers with witchcraft, saying that ‘her fairy glamour is illusory, and once approached the White Maiden is revealed as a White Witch, the golden girl as a golden idol’.  If we look through the novel we can see how Daisy uses her ‘fairy glamour’ to allow her to deceive people.  She deceives Tom in going behind his back to see Gatsby, and deceives Gatsby in leading him to believe that she will give up her life with Tom to be with him.

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By the end of the novel Daisy is no longer the sweet and innocent girl she might be seen as presenting herself at the start, and the last we hear of her is when she leaves Gatsby for Tom, leaving Gatsby to take the blame for the killing of Myrtle, which in turn leads to the killing of Gatsby.  Nick’s opinion of her has changed, and he no longer considers her charming, but instead say’s ‘they were careless people, Tom and Daisy – they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast ...

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