Daisy In The Great Gatsby

F. Scott Fitzgerald laced The Great Gatsby (1925) with his own social commentary on the decay of Jazz Age society due to white Americans. Fitzgerald knew of the growing divisions among America’s white community in the nineteen-twenties, and he utilized The Great Gatsby’s characters to show how the division will cause the end of the Jazz Age. Tom Buchanan, a arrogant man from old money, optimizes the views of eugenicists like Lothrop Stoddard, who believed in levels of whiteness within the white race; ultimately, Tom’s love interests provide the backbone for Fitzgerald’s distaste for the social stratification of the white community. Daisy Fay Buchanan, Tom’s picturesque wife, represents the peak of the whiteness spectrum, and Myrtle

Wilson, Tom’s married mistress, aligns with the bottom of the whiteness spectrum. Fitzgerald means for Tom’s love interests to personify the extremes of the spectrum of whiteness on the surface level and in their naming; the highest level of whites will use their power to tear apart those lower than them with no remorse, which will destroy white society from the inside, just as Daisy ended Myrtle.
Unsurprisingly, F. Scott Fitzgerald drew inspiration for writing from the world he lived in. Fitzgerald lived from 1896 to 1940, but the nineteen-twenties were his time to flourish (Donaldson 16). Fitzgerald spent a great deal of his time in and around New York city, with his wife Zelda Fitzgerald; though, he wrote The Great Gatsby in France, which hit better with reviewers than his previous works (20-4). Fitzgerald framed The Great Gatsby in the era he knew best, the Jazz Age; referring to the nineteen-twenties in the United States, the Jazz Age is named for the popular genre derived from African American musical traditions. Spreading mainly from New Orleans, jazz gained prominence in the United States at the end of World War I. African Americans during and following World War I flocked to Northern cities, causing the primary source of the migration of jazz (Johnson 15). Moreover, the social constructs, like class and race beliefs, of the nineteen-twenties bloomed in The Great Gatsby to varying degrees; for instance, Tom is blatantly racist for believing in a superior Nordic race. Similarly, Fitzgerald featured social class issues of the Jazz Age more subtly with Jay Gatsby, an extravagant man of bootlegging riches; old money rich people find Jay to be lesser of a person for being a man of new money. Tom’s racist beliefs are based off Lathrop Stoddard’s The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-supremacy (1920), called The Rise of the Colored Empires by Goddard in The Great Gatsby by Tom (Fitzgerald 12). Basically, Stoddard was concerned by the world’s race situation with the coming population explosion among the "colored" peoples and its threat to "white world-supremacy,” which Tom is arrogant enough to believe. Stoddard divided the white race into three main divisions: Nordic, Alpine, and Mediterranean; additionally, Stoddard claimed the Nordics were the greatest of the three, thus they needed to be preserved using eugenics, controlled breeding (Stoddard xxix-xxx). Fitzgerald’s dislike of Stoddard and his theory of three divisions of whiteness becomes clear in Tom’s blind belief of Stoddard’s work, which he had to have barely read; it gets Tom on top of the social chain, which is enough for him.
Daisy progresses through her life at the top of Stoddard’s white race divisions, but her good attributes fade into bad attributes as she conforms to being at the Nordic level; more importantly, Daisy’s descent embodies Fitzgerald thought of America doing the same, due to believing in a theory as ridiculous as a hierarchy of whiteness.

Daisy appeared first appears as lovely and pure as a fresh bouquet of her namesakes, especially before marrying Tom. The common daisy or Bellis perennis, family Compositæ is the traditional white-petaled flower, commonly representing purity. Also, daisy can be used as a term of endearment, or it can be used to mean “a first-rate thing or person” (“Daisy”). Daisy certainly was only a pure, first-rate person in her “white girlhood” (Fitzgerald 19). Daisy’s girlhood was artificial, for it was only false, snobby cheer she always exuded (151). Daisy’s pureness is tied to her love of Jay in her youth, yet Jay is a no one from the “bottom” the the white race. As she always would have, Daisy decides her own fate by choosing Tom over Jay to live out the arrogant, egotistical Nordic dream, while keeping down the rest of the white race. Her decent to fully representing the Nordic end of Stoddard’s spectrum is foreshadowed by her maiden name, Fay. In the nineteen-twenties, ofay, often shortened to fay, is a offensive term often used by African Americans meaning a white person. Uniquely, Fitzgerald used fay to mark Daisy as a threat to the

white race. The origins of ofay are unknown, but the common belief is it comes from the pig Latin for foe (Gold 227). Daisy becomes a foe to the lesser levels of Stoddard’s lower two divisions as she kills Myrtle in cold blood; although, ofay is not the sole foreshadowing to the harm Daisy will cause. In Greek mythology, the daisy was sacred to the goddess Artemis, goddess the sudden death of girls among other things. In Christianity, daisies are sacred to Saint Mary Magdalen (Kell 16-20). By the time of confessing her love for Jay in front of Tom, Daisy’s freshness is fleeting, with her purity out the hotel window (Fitzgerald 130-3). Following the death of Myrtle, Daisy is in her cold, loveless Autumn of life, for she now only wants wealth, not to mention avoidance of paying for her crimes. Fitzgerald had Daisy get away with murder because it is the route reality will follow under Stoddard’s theory of whiteness; he worried the twenties would continue to marginalize its self to destruction, and Daisy is his warning of the injustice to come.
Meanwhile, Myrtle serves as a parallel to the bottom of Stoddard’s whiteness spectrum.

Myrtle has never got it her way, other than with Tom in a way. Plus, Fitzgerald highlights Myrtle’s bad habits, unlike Daisy’s habits; although, she mostly wants what Daisy has, like comfort and love. Moreover, myrtle plants can be climbing plants, which require support to live; consistently, Myrtle needs to reassurance, for she is highly insecure. Furthermore, Myrtle comes from the depressing ash heaps, and Tom and Nick Carraway, the novel’s narrator, constantly look down their noses at her. For instance, Nick thinks poorly of Myrtle just for reading gossip magazines, rather than the newspaper (Fitzgerald 29). The myrtle flower is sacred to the Greek goddesses Demeter, goddess of the harvest, and Aphrodite, goddess of love. The myrtle flower is a common symbol of true love, and it is the Hebrew symbol for marriage. In pre-Victorian England, the myrtle symbolized good luck and love in a marriage. In Victorian England, the myrtle flower emblematic of Germany, which relates to non-Nordic origins (Nelson 232-5). Myrtles have always been a flower of love, yet Fitzgerald made myrtle Wilson a tragic character; if society aims to create unnecessary hierarchies, America can end in a tragic state just the same. Myrtle never achieves her goals for love or to get away all because Daisy’s carelessness. Fitzgerald knew of the harm internal strife could cause in the white communities, and he

effectively warns the American public with Daisy and Myrtle. It is easy enough for the rich and powerful to come out on the top of society, without a hierarchy within the white race.
Though none as strong as Daisy or Myrtle, Fitzgerald developed flower imagery throughout the entirely of The Great Gatsby that largely represented to decomposing of American society, for Tom’s love interests epitomize the extremes of the spectrum of whiteness on the surface level and in their names. The Jazz Age portrayed in The Great Gatsby opens in the revelry of Summer, but it ends as the season, and the era, spiral toward tragedy. Fitzgerald considered this tragedy to be a “superior” white race actually winning over the rest of the hierarchy of whiteness, and Tom and Daisy, of the “superior” level of whiteness, made it out on top in a way Fitzgerald wanted to avoid in the real world. Meanwhile, Myrtle, Wilson, and Jay of the lowest levels of the hierarchy of whiteness all fell hard and died harder. All in all, Daisy and Myrtle’s extremeness in the hierarchy of whiteness is heightened by Fitzgerald’s fear of the highest level of whites tearing apart those lower than them with no remorse, destroying society itself, just as Daisy annihilated Myrtle.