The Great Gatsby Daisy Character Analysis

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In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, each character displays his or her true colors as the novel progresses. Jay Gatsby, who at first appears to be a confident, affluent man, is revealed to be a self-conscious fraud that has made his entire fortune by bootlegging liquor. Nick, the narrator of the story claims that he was raised in a way as to not judge others. Throughout the novel he proceeds to judge every character cynically and give readers the impression that every character is a miserable one. The biggest fraud in the novel, however, is Daisy Buchanan. Daisy, who is introduced to readers while donning a white dress in her lavish home, white symbolizing purity and innocence, is revealed to be anything but that. The soft-spoken, mild mannered young lady Nick first meets turns out to be anything but elegant. Throughout the novel, Fitzgerald never explicitly depicts Daisy as being a pathetic character, but subtle clues within the work point to Daisy’s ultimate unveiling as a desperate, confused character. This paper will attempt to analyze the deception of the character Daisy Buchanan in the Great Gatsby. Upon Nick’s first encounter with his cousin Daisy, he explains to the reader “I looked back at my cousin, who had begun to ask me questions in her low, thrilling voice. It was the kind of voice that the ear follows up and down, as if each speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again” (Fitzgerald 9). Based on the description of Daisy, Nick describes her as a lovely, thrilling woman. Richard Lehan’s article “Carless People: Daisy Fay” describes her charm “so that to yearn for her is to romp like God through the heavens, to live as sheer potentially”. Yet, a reader reading between the lines ... ... middle of paper ... ...ever to see him again. Perhaps the most heartbreaking action Daisy takes against Gatsby is being absent at his funeral. This reveals her true character and proves that she is simply an ignorant, confused woman who never really knew what true love was. Throughout The Great Gatsby, nearly every character is not who they seem. Daisy Buchanan, however, is truly a deceptive character because of the way Fitzgerald develops her. While Fitzgerald intentionally unveils Gatsby as a fake, the way he exposes Daisy as being a fraud is much more subtle. Daisy is meant to come across as a graceful lady who wears elegant clothing and lives in a beautiful home, when in actuality she is a selfish, ignorant girl. Fitzgerald does a spectacular job of revealing Daisy for the character she truly is in a subtle manner, but in a way that still expresses her true nature.

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