Character Analysis Of Daisy Buchanan In 'The Great Gatsby'
Who is Daisy Buchanan?
If you were asked to describe Daisy Buchanan right after reading The Great Gatsby, you would more than likely describe her as superficial, shallow, fake and ditzy. However, there is another part of her that she hides from everyone, even herself. Under the surface, there is a reservoir. That is her character, and it takes Jay Gatsby to stir the waters and bring the cleanest form of Daisy to the surface.
At first look, Daisy is a totally flat character. She came from money and wealth, she is currently wealthy, and will always have wealth and money. She seems to be in a motionlessness state, but with a closer look, Daisy varies between being very shallow and pretty deep. Even though she does not go through enough change
to be called a round character. It is easy to say that she is at a half way mark between flat and round. She has a rather complex personality. The reader catches little insights of her true self in a lot of instances, but none better than when she talks about her daughter’s birth. “’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, 17). This quote is a lot like Daisy herself. On the surface, it sounds ridiculous and unreal, but underneath, it is one of the deepest statements that she makes. What Daisy is really meaning is that she herself is a fool. She’s nothing but a useless little housewife following a lavishly normal routine day after day. In many stories, the fool is a character with hidden wisdom and knowledge about life. The same goes for Daisy, her child, and all the women of the era. In order to live in a man’s world, a woman either had to overlook gender roles completely and never marry or become so humble and innocent that no one assumed her true personality or married her right away. With the conservative definition of happiness in mind, of course every woman proffered to do the second option and so Daisy wished the dreadful happiness on to her daughter.
Another part of Daisy’s character is her love of being chased. With that being said, maybe she represents the American Dream; the dream of something unattainable. The intriguing fact about Daisy being the unattainable dream, is that once someone has finally made themselves perfect by her standards, she still rejects them. If Daisy Buchanan is not winning the game of cat and mouse, she changes the rules. For example, when she first visits Gatsby’s castle of a house, she realizes that her poor lieutenant had finally reached her level. “It makes me sad because I’ve never seen such—such beautiful shirts before” (92). What Daisy actually means is that she has never seen Gatsby wearing such beautiful shirts before. By earning more money than god in a period of four years, Gatsby has almost achieved the American Dream, and therefore Daisy. She is scared to be conquered, to be caught and used as a trophy for the man who achieved the American Dream. It is this fear that keeps her with Tom, because he is so dumb that he doesn’t realize what she is.
Like anything that is chased, Daisy must have a shelter to hide in, because if Daisy, the deepest and purest form of her, was finally ever permanently removed from the reservoir in which she hides, she would not be Daisy Buchanan, she would become a shadow or a figment of the imagination.
Works Cited
Fitzgerald, Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: Charles Scribner 's Sons, 1925
If you were asked to describe Daisy Buchanan right after reading The Great Gatsby, you would more than likely describe her as superficial, shallow, fake and ditzy. However, there is another part of her that she hides from everyone, even herself. Under the surface, there is a reservoir. That is her character, and it takes Jay Gatsby to stir the waters and bring the cleanest form of Daisy to the surface.
At first look, Daisy is a totally flat character. She came from money and wealth, she is currently wealthy, and will always have wealth and money. She seems to be in a motionlessness state, but with a closer look, Daisy varies between being very shallow and pretty deep. Even though she does not go through enough change
to be called a round character. It is easy to say that she is at a half way mark between flat and round. She has a rather complex personality. The reader catches little insights of her true self in a lot of instances, but none better than when she talks about her daughter’s birth. “’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, 17). This quote is a lot like Daisy herself. On the surface, it sounds ridiculous and unreal, but underneath, it is one of the deepest statements that she makes. What Daisy is really meaning is that she herself is a fool. She’s nothing but a useless little housewife following a lavishly normal routine day after day. In many stories, the fool is a character with hidden wisdom and knowledge about life. The same goes for Daisy, her child, and all the women of the era. In order to live in a man’s world, a woman either had to overlook gender roles completely and never marry or become so humble and innocent that no one assumed her true personality or married her right away. With the conservative definition of happiness in mind, of course every woman proffered to do the second option and so Daisy wished the dreadful happiness on to her daughter.
Another part of Daisy’s character is her love of being chased. With that being said, maybe she represents the American Dream; the dream of something unattainable. The intriguing fact about Daisy being the unattainable dream, is that once someone has finally made themselves perfect by her standards, she still rejects them. If Daisy Buchanan is not winning the game of cat and mouse, she changes the rules. For example, when she first visits Gatsby’s castle of a house, she realizes that her poor lieutenant had finally reached her level. “It makes me sad because I’ve never seen such—such beautiful shirts before” (92). What Daisy actually means is that she has never seen Gatsby wearing such beautiful shirts before. By earning more money than god in a period of four years, Gatsby has almost achieved the American Dream, and therefore Daisy. She is scared to be conquered, to be caught and used as a trophy for the man who achieved the American Dream. It is this fear that keeps her with Tom, because he is so dumb that he doesn’t realize what she is.
Like anything that is chased, Daisy must have a shelter to hide in, because if Daisy, the deepest and purest form of her, was finally ever permanently removed from the reservoir in which she hides, she would not be Daisy Buchanan, she would become a shadow or a figment of the imagination.
Works Cited
Fitzgerald, Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: Charles Scribner 's Sons, 1925