The Great Gatsby Daisy Character Analysis Essay

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“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.

One terrible flaw in Daisy was the emphasis she put on a man’s riches. It was in the forefront of her mind all the time. She made her decisions based on that factor, which is a terrible, greedy way to decide. Daisy’s heart was corrupted, and she had lost any sense of real love in her life. She would never experience it.

She shoved her true feelings deep into a corner of her heart, and allowed money to control her life.

“In choosing Tom Buchanan over the absent Gatsby, Daisy has allowed her life to be shaped forever by the crude force of Tom’s money” (Dickstein 258). She decided that she needed money more than she needed love.

Daisy was fine with changing her love on the dot. “Despite the $350,000-dollar string of pearls around her neck, when Daisy receives a letter from Gatsby the night before the wedding, she is ready to call the whole thing off” (Dickstein 258). First she loved Gatsby, then she loved Tom, next she went back to Gatsby, and finally she loved Tom again. “He became fabulously prosperous and his money has brought his beloved back into his life just as he had hoped” (Nagel 116). Money tied into all of these switches in who she fancied. Clearly, Daisy cared way too much about the wealth of a

man.
Daisy also had the troubles of being an extreme flirt. She was very ready romantically, and could fall in love with anyone with a snap of the fingers. That problem would likely lead to troubles with relationships, and Daisy did have those troubles. A number of factors led into this issue. “In Fitzgerald’s fiction the idealized woman becomes the object of romantic obsession” (Lehan 67). One of those factors is that it was exceptionally easy for her to get a man hooked on her. Daisy was very pretty, and that was probably a downfall of hers. “Her voice was ‘full of money’” (Dickstein 260). Her voice was said to be very attractive and persuasive as well. It can be a blessing as well as a curse to have these qualities, as they can potentially give difficulties in life.
Also, Daisy would give herself to a man very easily. “Daisy gave herself to Gatsby one resplendent October evening” (Lehan 73). It did not take much for her to fall for someone. That would add more difficulties to a person’s life as well. She would do fall many times for both Gatsby and Tom. She kept switching between them, and this caused uneasiness and led to more problems.
Tying in with Daisy being quick to decide who she loved, she made a mistake in marrying Tom. She was in love with Gatsby, but when he left for war, she ditched him. She didn’t wait for Gatsby to get back and kind of forgot about him. Daisy saw Tom’s riches and appeal and decided to marry him. This shows how much real love she has. She later regretted the decision to marry that quickly.
One problem with Tom is that he victimized Daisy a little. "Look!" she complained. "I hurt it." We all looked – the knuckle was black and blue. "You did it, Tom," she said accusingly. "I know you didn't mean to, but you did do it. That's what I get for marrying a brute of a man, a great, big, hulking physical specimen of a– " ( Fitzgerald 12). That is a sign of their relationship, where Tom is always hurting it, sometimes knowingly, and sometimes unknowingly. “She is, to be sure, victimized by Tom” (Lehan 76).
Tom Buchanan also had a love besides Daisy. “The fact that he had one [a mistress] was insisted upon wherever he was known. His acquaintances resented the fact that he turned up in popular restaurants with her and, leaving her at a table, sauntered about, chatting with whomever he knew” (Fitzgerald 24). Obviously, him loving a different woman would not go well with Daisy, and she didn’t like to talk about it very much; she might have been a little embarrassed by it. “‘Why--’ she said hesitantly, ‘Tom’s got some woman in New York’” (Fitzgerald 15). Tom visited his lady friend frequently, and Daisy also started to visit Gatsby many times. This lack of time spent together and spent with other lovers significantly supplied to the gap in their relationship and caused them to drift apart from one another.
Daisy’s husband clearly wasn’t involved in the marriage, and saw it as more of a chore and a restriction than a blessing and privilege. He denied the real reason for marriage. This left Daisy feeling abandoned and alone, which also could have contributed to her renewed love for Jay Gatsby. "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” (Fitzgerald 16-17). This quote shows how much Tom cares about his wife - he wasn’t even there with her when she gave birth to their only child. They live with each other, and Daisy has to deal with him all the time, and neither one of them really likes the other for a long time. “Her life with Tom has not been an easy one; she has put up with his infidelities and his gibberish about racial and other matters.” (Lehan 75).
Probably the biggest mistake made by Daisy Fay in The Great Gatsby is how quickly she jumped to the opportunity of marrying Tom, as mentioned earlier. She didn’t wait for Gatsby to arrive back home from war, despite the love letters being sent to each other and the real, true love that Gatsby had for Daisy. “Tom’s mannerisms have become hers.” (Lehan 75). Daisy was with Tom for long enough to become more cruel-hearted like him, and that could assist her in the proceeding mistakes. The wise thing to do once Tom and Daisy realized they didn’t love each other would be to get a divorce, but they didn’t because Daisy was Catholic, even though it is perfectly acceptable to get divorced in the Catholic Church. So they stayed together, and before long it was too late to reverse the misfortunes they caused.
When Daisy and Tom first met each other, they were in fact in a deep love. “I saw them in Santa Barbara when they came back, and I thought I'd never seen a girl so mad about her husband. If he left the room for a minute she'd look around uneasily, and say: ‘Where's Tom gone?’ and wear the most abstracted expression until she saw him coming in the door. She used to sit on the sand with his head in her lap by the hour, rubbing her fingers over his eyes and looking at him with unfathomable delight. It was touching to see them together – it made you laugh in a hushed, fascinated way” ( Fitzgerald 76-77). The problem with this love is that it was false; Daisy was temporarily fascinated by Tom’s money, and Tom was wowed by Daisy’s charming voice and appearance. They were extremely crazy about each other. The young couple should have waited a little while to see if the love was true, but they did not, and got married shortly.
Eventually Daisy realized that she hands-down did not have the same love for Tom that she once did, and she did not enjoy her life with him. “Well, I’ve had a very bad time, and I’m pretty cynical about everything” (Fitzgerald 16). Both of them loved other people, and their relationship started getting out of control.
Because of the fact that Daisy married prematurely, when Tom and her started drifting, the man she turned to was Jay Gatsby. He had loved her ever since the war, and had been dedicating his life to winning her back. “He became fabulously prosperous and his money has brought his love back into his life just as he had hoped” (Nagel 116). Once again, Daisy turned to the money. Gatsby seized his chance with Tom loving his mistress Myrtle Wilson, and Daisy and him got back together.
However, when Tom saw Daisy and Gatsby back together, he suddenly didn’t want to let go of his wife. The heated argument between him and Gatsby right in front of Daisy exposed each others flaws, mistakes, and weaknesses. Because of Tom’s renewed “love” in Daisy, she was torn between the two, even though she was still leaning towards Gatsby. “‘Oh, you want too much!’ she cried to Gatsby.’I love you now – isn't that enough? I can't help what's past.’ She began to sob helplessly.’I did love him once – but I loved you too.’ Gatsby's eyes opened and closed. ‘You loved me TOO?’ he repeated” (Fitzgerald 132). As Tom revealed Gatsby’s dishonesty and how he cheated to get where he was, it started to be too much for Daisy. She snapped and gave herself to Tom. She definitely should not have married the brute of Tom Buchanan.
Tom was now confident in his control over Daisy. To rub it in Gatsby’s face, he let the two of them drive home by themselves that night, knowing that they could not possibly reconcile. This fact agrees with the point of Daisy being unwise in marrying Tom, who wouldn’t love her, as he did this more for greed and pride and to torture Gatsby. When Daisy drove back, she hit Myrtle Wilson, and she was instantly dead. George killed Gatsby at Tom’s prompting, and killed himself. If Daisy hadn’t rushed her marriage, the deaths wouldn’t have happened. Her morals were unjust and nearly non-existent, and had she made better decisions, much tragedy could have been avoided.
In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Daisy’s bad morals led to tragedy and death. She truly was a cruel-hearted woman, caring about nothing but herself. She has been described as “‘Vulgar and inhuman’” (Lehan 75) as well having a “‘Vicious emptiness’” (Lehan 75). Her actions were childish. She caused great troubles because of her impatience, lust, and flirtiness. There is no character with such a bad heart in The Great Gatsby as Daisy Fay.