The Character of Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsby by F.Scott Fitzgerald

The Character of Daisy Buchanan in the novel - The Great Gatsby - by

F.Scott Fitzgerald

Daisy is The Great Gatsby’s most enigmatic, and perhaps most

disappointing, character. Although Fitzgerald does much to make her a

character worthy of Gatsby’s unlimited devotion, in the end she

reveals herself for what she really is. Despite her beauty and charm,

Daisy is merely a selfish, shallow, and in fact, hurtful, woman.

Gatsby loves her (or at least the idea of her) with such vitality and

determination that readers would like, in many senses, to see her be

worthy of his devotion. Although Fitzgerald carefully builds Daisy’s

character with associations of light, purity, and innocence, when all

is said and done, she is the opposite from what she presents herself

to be.

From Nick’s first visit, Daisy is associated with otherworldliness.

Nick calls on her at her house and initially finds her (and Jordan

Baker, who is in many ways an unmarried version of Daisy) dressed all

in white, sitting on an “enormous couch . . . buoyed up as though upon

an anchored balloon . . . [her dress] rippling and fluttering as it

[she] had just been blown back in after a short flight around the

house.” From this moment, Daisy becomes like an angel on earth. She is

routinely linked with the color white (a white dress, white flowers,

white car, and so on) always at the height of fashion and addressing

people with only the most endearing terms. She appears pure in a world

of cheats and liars. Given Gatsby’s obsession with Daisy and the

lengths to which he has gone to win her, she seems a worthy paramour.

As the story continues, however, more of Daisy is revealed, and

bit-by-bit she becomes less of an ideal. Given that she is fully aw...

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...kills Myrtle Wilson, and then leaves the

scene, readers know (as poor Gatsby still does not) that she is void

of a conscience. Perhaps all that white that has surrounded her isn’t

so much purity (although Gatsby, of course, would see it as such), but

perhaps the white represents a void, a lack (as in a lack of

intellectualism and a lack of conscience). To Daisy, Myrtle is

expendable. She is not of the social elite, so what difference does

her death make? To add insult to injury, as if she hadn’t betrayed

Gatsby enough already, she abandons Gatsby in his death. After killing

Myrtle, Daisy returns home. She and Tom resolve their differences and

leave soon thereafter, moving presumably to another city where they

will remain utterly unchanged and life will continue as it always

does. Daisy, although ethereal in some qualities, is decidedly

devilish in others.