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Literary elements of the great gatsby
Literary elements of the great gatsby
Literary elements of the great gatsby
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In “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Daisy struggles between her desire to be with someone she truly loves and her rational to be with someone who will give her social and financial stability. Ultimately, Daisy chooses Tom over Gatsby as he is the safer option once Gatsby is revealed to be untruthful, showing that she is predominately interested in a steady life. We find cases of this struggle between mind and heart before the events of the text even start. After Gatsby leaves Daisy for his service in the war, she starts dating multiple men in an attempt to find someone to replace Gatsby. Daisy decides that her most suitable and beneficial partner would someone who’s connection is one “of love, of money, [and] of unquestionable practicality”, …show more content…
a role that Gatsby (the version he told her he was) fit into perfectly. However, at the same time, “she wanted her life shaped immediately”, which led her to becoming engaged with Tom (pg. 151). Although Tom was wealthy and had the social status that would make him a practical husband, Daisy did not feel the same love for him that she did for Gatsby. Daisy goes with what she deems to be the most practical and safe marital option. The night before the wedding, Daisy realises that marrying Tom is not what her heart wants. When Jordan is in her room to check on Daisy, she is drunk and in tears. “ ‘Here, dearie,’ She groped around in a waste-basket she had with her on the bed and pulled out the string of pearls. ‘Take ‘em downstairs and give ‘em back to whoever they belong to . Tell ‘em Daisy’s change’ er mine. Say ‘Daisy’s change her mine!’ “(pg. 75). Daisy is known for staying away from alcohol and her intoxication tells us that she is very uncomfortable with the situation. Daisy pressured herself into marrying Tom because it seemed safe but it now appears that it’s not really what Daisy wants. She ends up going through with the marriage and choosing practicality over love. At the beginning of the novel, Daisy is in a bad marriage with no way to escape it until she meets Gatsby again.
When Nick visits Daisy she tells him the story of how her daughter was born, “It’ll show you how I’ve gotten to feel about––things. Well, she was less than an hour old and Tom was God knows where. I woke up out of the ether with an utterly abandoned feeling.” By leaving Daisy behind at a time when she most needs him, Tom loses his value of companionship with Daisy. He no longer fits the three criteria that Daisy feels she needs in a man. Daisy knows that Tom no longer loves her and is having an affair with another woman, but despite all of this, Daisy has no intention of leaving him (20). This is because Tom, despite no longer fulfilling her emotionally, is still better for her financially and socially than if she left him to live alone. If Daisy wants to stay in her class, she has no option other than to stay with Tom. When Daisy finally sees Gatsby again, she suddenly has another option besides staying with Tom. Daisy knows that Gatsby has true feelings of love towards her, but leaving Tom would prove to be risky as it could tarnish her reputation and by extension her social stability. Daisy is now struggling between taking a risk for love and maintaining a safe, stable life she is ultimately unhappy
with. At the end of the book, Tom and Gatsby finally confront each other to win over Daisy. Gatsby pressures Daisy into rejecting Tom but Tom retaliates by reminding her of a time when she did in fact love him, “ ‘I never loved you’ she hesitated(...) ‘Not that day I carried you down from the Punch Bowl to keep you shoes dry?’ There was a husky tenderness in his tone.... ‘Daisy?’ ‘Please don’t.’ Her voice was cold, but the rancor was gone from it.” (pg. 132). Daisy is lying when she tells Tom she doesn’t love him. Nonetheless, she goes through with telling him because she wants to make Gatsby happy. When Tom responds with memories of times when she did love him, Daisy is torn. She wants to please Gatsby but not at the cost of lying. The memories also remind Daisy of the time she enjoyed with Tom and makes her sympathise with him regardless of what he’s done. When Tom tells Daisy of all the sketchy things Gatsby does that he lied to her about, Daisy no longer feels as compassionately towards Gatsby. Before, he was the perfect replacement, someone who loved her, but now that she knew he wasn’t what he seemed, Gatsby no longer has the appeal of being different any different from Tom. In Daisy’s mind, both keep secrets from her and lie to her. When Tom tricks Daisy into thinking that he has a newfound love for her, Tom appears to be more financially, socially, and emotionally stable. Daisy’s complexity throughout the novel relates to the theme of how characters act versus how they really are, as Daisy confusion is mainly lead through the untruthfulness of characters and their attempt of being more appealing than their true selves.
Daisy’s main goal is to maintain her social status. She comes from a high status; her voice is even described as “sounding like money” (120). Near the end of the novel, she doesn’t leave Tom for Gatsby even though she truly loved Gatsby. She stays with Tom knowing he has a higher status and more security than Gatsby. Nick describes Tom and Daisy interactions as not happy, but almost satisfied in a way. Nick says, “They weren’t happy, and neither of them had touched their chicken or ale- and yet they weren’t unhappy either. There was an unmistakable air of natural intimacy about the picture, and anybody would have said that they were conspiring together” (145). This quote shows how Daisy wasn’t with Tom because it made her happy, she was with Tom because he didn’t make her unhappy. Daisy uses Tom to provide a secure status and life for
The Great Gatsby is an emotional tale of hope of love and “romantic readiness”(1.2) that is both admirable and meritorious .Yet, the question of Daisy ever being able to measure up to Gatsby’s expectations is one that reverberates throughout the course of the novel. Be that as it may, Daisy is never truly able to measure up to Gatsby’s expectations because the image of Daisy in Gatsby’s mind is entirely different from who she actually is. Even during his younger years, Gatsby had always had a vision of himself “as a son of God”(6.98) and that “he must be about his fathers business, the service of a vast, vulgar and meretricious beauty”(6.98). Gatsby’s desire for aristocracy, wealth, and luxury is exactly what drives him to pursue Daisy who embodies everything that that Gatsby desires and worked towards achieving. Therefore, Gatsby sees Daisy as the final piece to his puzzle in order realize his vision. Gatsby’s hyperbolized expectation of Daisy throws light on the notion if our dreams as individuals are actually limited by reality. Since our dreams as human beings are never truly realized, because they may be lacking a specific element. Daisy proves to be that element that lingers in Gatsby’s dreams but eludes his reality.
Instead of investing in their marriage, they chose to actively destroy it by looking for fulfillment in other uncalled for relationships. Their true love for each other is doubted. When Tom finds out that Daisy and Gatsby are having an affair, Tom says to Gatsby, “...what 's more, I love Daisy too. Once in a while I go off on a spree and make a fool of myself, but I always come back, and in my heart I love her all the time” (“Great Gatsby” 19). Tom does not seem to view his “spree” as he views Daisy. He wants Daisy to be loyal to him even though he himself is not loyal to her. Though Tom claims to love Daisy and does not like that she is after Gatsby, he says that he loves her in his heart, and meanwhile is still interested in Myrtle. Love is an action, not just a feeling, so his statement of “love” contradicts him. Interestingly enough, though Daisy loves Gatsby, her love for him is not enough to persuade her to completely give Tom up. Gatsby tells her, "‘Daisy... Just tell him the truth-that you never loved him...’ She hesitated...she realized at last what she was doing-and as though she had never, all along, intended doing anything at all. But it was done now. It was too late” (“Great Gatsby” 20). Her hesitance shows that she was torn between Tom and Gatsby, but when she realized the tight spot she was in, she gave in to Gatsby- for the time
In the novel The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Daisy Buchanan is unthinking and self-centered. Daisy is unthinking because when she meets Nick for the first time after the war; the first thing she says is “I’m p-paralyzed with happiness” (8) which is really unbecoming for a social butterfly like her. Moreover, she stutters while saying the word “paralyzed” which could imply that she says this without really thinking, because this is not the typical greeting one would say to their cousin, even after a long time. Also, since Daisy is pretty high on the social ladder, she expects people to laugh at her terrible jokes because she laughs after saying she is “paralyzed with happiness” even though Nick does not, illustrating her inconsiderate
Daisy becomes harder to grasp when Gatsby’s unworldly views on time and what is achievable causes her to fade from his dreams. His determination encompasses naivety because his dreams are unrealistic. Gatsby not only wants Daisy back, but he also wants to remove her past with Tom Buchanan, Daisy’s husband. Gatsby demands Daisy to tell Tom how she never loved him, but Daisy struggles to because it is not the truth. She tells Gatsby, “’Oh, you want too much!... I love you now – isn’t that enough? I can’t help what’s past.’… The words seemed to bite physically into Gatsby” (132). Gatsby’s expectation for Daisy to delete the memory of her past love for Tom like words on a computer is naïve. It is Gatsby’s fault for fabricating a false idea of Daisy that separates his idea of her from her. He has a vision of a perfect story, but Daisy’s inability to erase her past with Tom critically ruins Gatsby’s vision. In his mind, Daisy only loves him, but when Daisy admits to the truth of once loving Tom as well, it is intolerable to Gatsby and his dream begins to fall apart. Similarly, Gatsby’s perception of time is flawed due to his obsession with Daisy. Ever since Daisy left Gatsby, he chases after her, looking for the past. When he finally meets her after many years, he sees an opportunity to start over and strives to avoid losing her
At the mention of Gatsby’s name, Daisy becomes immediately interested. She demands to know who he is, but the conversation takes a different turn (Fitzgerald 11). Daisy and Gatsby reunite and began an affair that Gatsby has always dreamed of. Gatsby tells Daisy that she must leave Tom and she begins to panic. Daisy realizes Gatsby will control her just like Tom does. She becomes scared and no longer wants to be with him. She chooses Tom because, despite his indiscretions and temper, he is able to give Daisy financial security. According to "The Great Gatsby A Misogynistic Tale English Literature Essay," Daisy is ultimately bringing the downfall of Gatsby because of her selfishness and need for security. Gatsby will control her as much as Tom and not be able to give her enough financial security because he does not make his money legally and could lose his money more easily than Tom. Daisy does come from wealth, but she does not have the experience in finances to invest or manage her money, a man has always done that for her. Daisy believes that financial security is more important than love because she is scared of life without it. She has lived her whole life without love, but not without
The character of Daisy Buchanan has many instances where her life and love of herself, money, and materialism come into play. Daisy is constantly portrayed as someone who is only happy when things are being given to her and circumstances are going as she has planned them. Because of this, Daisy seems to be the character that turns Fitzgerald's story from a tale of wayward love to a saga of unhappy lives. Fitzgerald portrays Daisy as a "doomed" character from the very beginning of the novel. She seems concerned only of her own stability and is sometimes not ready to go though what she feels she must do to continue the life that she has grown to know. She tells that she only married Tom Buchanan for the security he offered and love had little to do with the issue. Before her wedding, Jordan Baker finds Daisy in her hotel room, "groping around in the waste-basket she had with her on the bed and pull[ing] out [a] string of pearls. "Take 'em down-stairs and give 'em back.... Tell 'em all Daisy's change' her mine... She began to cry - she cried and cried... we locked the door and got her into a cold bath." (Fitzgerald 77)
“The driving force in this alliance is clearly riches, not romance, for Daisy seems to have loved Gatsby all along but felt that he was unworthy of her socioeconomic standing” (Nagel 116). Daisy Fay married for money, was very ready for marriage, and married someone she didn’t love. Consequently, she was by far the most atrocious and hard-hearted character in The Great Gatsby. She had no morals and always did whatever would benefit her the most. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Daisy’s bad morals led to tragedy and death.
He has spent the past five years attempting to impress her, all for Daisy to eventually dash all his hopes. Fitzgerald also gives the reader a powerful insight into the character of Daisy. Her indecisiveness demonstrates that she is in fact incapable of love, though she may be capable of affection she cannot comprehend a deep meaningful relationship. Daisy is in fact not in love Gatsby, this is first shown when she gets fed up waiting on him returning from war, she marries Tom. Now she wants to have an affair with him. After Gatsby’s revelation, he enters an altercation with Daisy’s husband Tom, out of anger that he may have lost Daisy
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a fictional story of a man, Gatsby, whose idealism personified the American dream. Yet, Gatsby’s world transformed when he lost his god-like power and indifference towards the world to fall in love with Daisy. Gatsby’s poverty and Daisy’s beauty, class, and affluence contrasted their mutual affectionate feelings for one another. As Gatsby had not achieved the American dream of wealth and fame yet, he blended into the crowd and had to lie to his love to earn her affections. This divide was caused by the gap in their class structures. Daisy grew up accustomed to marrying for wealth, status, power, and increased affluence, while Gatsby developed under poverty and only knew love as an intense emotional
Daisy Buchanan, in reality, is unable to live up the illusory Daisy that Gatsby has invented in his fantasy. After Daisy and Tom Buchanan leave another one of Gatsby’s splendid parties, Fitzgerald gives the reader a glimpse into what Gatsby’s expectations are. Fitzgerald claims that “he wanted nothing less of Daisy than that she should go to Tom and say: ‘I never loved you.’” (109). Here it is revealed that Gatsby’s one main desire is for Daisy to go willingly...
The relationship between Gatsby and Daisy is one of constant lies, and deceit. Gatsby falls in love with Daisy before he goes to the Army as a young man, and Daisy fell in love with him too. Yet Daisy is very materialistic and Tom, a very rich man came into place and Daisy married him instead of waiting for Gatsby like she had promised. Gatsby waited for Daisy but she did not wait for him, and instead married Tom just for his money. This shows how there relationship has been riddled with lies since the very beginning of the story.
In order for human relationships to thrive, both people involved must be responsible and selfless towards their partner. In the book The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Daisy Buchanan is the antithesis of someone who is responsible for her duties in a relationship. Her inability to make a decision regarding partners, to accept consequences, and to show up to Gatsby’s funeral, shows how Daisy was responsible for not only the failed relationship between her and Gatsby, but the failed relationship between her and Nick as well.
Daisy has doubts about marrying Tom after receiving a letter from Gatsby and realizing that she still has feelings for him. She even declares that “Daisy’s change’ her mind” (74). Daisy did not want to marry Tom, but did due to his wealth and social status. She became overwhelmed by Gatsby’s letter and love, but when it came down to the letter from Gatsby’s and the pearls from Tom, Daisy chooses the more expensive gift and marries Tom. Tom also marries Daisy for his own benefit. He proposes to her on the fact that her family is from old money, are well known and marries her based on her looks. Tom does not truly love her since he is suspected of cheating on their honey moon with “one of the chambermaids” (75). The fact that Tom cheats on Daisy so early in the relationship proves that he never loved
Furthermore, Tom is portrayed very negatively in this novel but Daisy continues to stay with him. I believe two of the main reasons why she stays with him is because they are in the same social class and Tom is very wealthy. Daisy is not happy in her marriage with Tom. She eventually meets up with Gatsby who makes her fall in love with him all over again. She says to Tom that she has never loved him and that she wants to go with Gatsby but Tom persuades her to stay with him. Daisy stays with Tom because of his wealth and there social class even though he has cheated on her multiple