Sara Teasdale

In The Great Gatsby, James Gatz is a poor boy who falls in love with a beautiful, eccentric millionaire named Daisy Fay. In an attempt to gain her affection, he quickly recreates himself to mimic her wants in a man. He finds ways to be near her, even after she is married, and moves into the West Egg of Long Island. When Daisy and Gatsby finally meet again, the romanticism is short lived. After many nights together, Daisy prepares herself to tell her husband, Tom, that she is leaving him for Jay Gatsby. In the end, she panics and plans on dropping the topic, but a quick glance with Gatsby gives her feelings away. Daisy wants to ignore her feelings, but she fails to move past her relationship with Gatsby, which becomes evident to her friends. In the end, she chooses to stay with her husband despite her feelings; she does this because she believes that change would only cause more problems. Gatsby is crushed by her actions, but fails to realize the true extent of them. He continues to pester her with hopes of rekindling a relationship that ended years ago, but she refuses, and immediately moves away with Tom. This action drives Gatsby mad, and his utter devotion for Daisy is the last thought on his mind when Wilson kills him. Sara Teasdale, a poet in the 1900s, is scared of this kind of commitment; she knows that love for another will only bring about her own demise. Faced with depression and an illness that leaves her bed-ridden for much of her life, she is heavily dependent on others to survive. She becomes close with few friends because she does not want to burden them. When she must choose between two lovers, she picks Ernst Filsinger, despite her affection for another, just as Daisy does. These actions leave not only herself hur...

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...n her poem I shall Not Care. This poem is commonly viewed as her suicide note; In it, Teasdale declares, “When I am dead […] I shall be more silent and cold-hearted / Than you are now” (Care 1, 7-8). She is angry because Filsinger gave up on her and never attempted to reunite. Instead, he allows her to disappear back into the privacy of her home and be overrun by her illness once again. She fully understands at this time that her failure in love was always inevitable and their relationship hurt both of them. After many weeks in bed, she receives the news that Lindsay, her old love, committed suicide. Feeling guilty for his death, the guilt of hurting her husband, and the crippling pain of her sickness, her depression swallows any hope left in her. She takes her life on January 29, 1933, after being trapped once again through failed love, depression, and her illness.