Who Is Daisy A Fool In The Great Gatsby

A Fools Place in the World
The Great Gatsby Key Passage Commentary
“The best thing a girl can be in this world [is to be] a beautiful little fool,” (pg.17, ch. 1)—at least it was in the 1920’s. Daisy Buchanan says this in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and it is a startling statement for a mother to make to her daughter, but it has a little truth to it. While Tom Buchanan is out doing who knows what, Daisy is emotionally troubled by the birth of her daughter, due to the fact that Daisy knows what kind of hardships she may inevitably pass down to her. Daisy is a prime example of the development of female ideology of the 20’s. This passage in The Great Gatsby represents the changing role of women.
Daisy’s ideology is a girl will enjoy more out of life if she is beautiful and simplistic. She says that she hopes her daughter will be not only a “fool,” but a “beautiful little fool,” because being physically attractive is advantageous in life. Women in the 1920’s were changing women, and Daisy is one of them as she explains by her changing feeling for Tom. “It’ll show you how I’ve gotten to feel about- things.” Daisy’s “things” or feelings for and relationship with Tom have changed as

she realizes that she knows too much. Daisy has complicated her life by catching on to Tom’s affair and it is bringing her troubles to her otherwise simplistic life. Although Daisy has been able to enjoy life so far because she is pretty, she understands deeper than the average girl. Daisy wants her daughter to fit into the social values of her era where the women are subservient and feeble-minded; women who are ignorant to the problems in life like, adultery in Daisy’s case.
Instead of valuing her daughter’s possibility of intelligence, Daisy hopes her daughter is ignorant; it’s for the best. Daisy is aware of Tom Buchanan’s deceitfulness, as she calls herself “cynical about everything.” She is facing an identity crisis for the fact that she does not live up to the women’s’ social standard of the 1920’s anymore. Although she pretends to be, Daisy is not a fool. She accepts the standard and applies it to herself and her daughter in hopes that it will fix her out of date personality. This is how Daisy strives to conform to her “sophisticated” yet simplistic role for life.
Furthermore, F.

Scott Fitzgerald uses the idiom “out of the ether” to express the difference between an average woman and Daisy Buchanan. As Daisy just gave birth, she is not in a stable state. Her husband is not with her, yet in the ether she does not mind. Daisy is in a state of frivolity; she is worry-free with no care in the world. This feeling is abruptly interrupted with an “utterly abandoned feeling.” Daisy has a feeling Tom is probably with another woman and that is why she feels abandoned. This is why she is in a troubled relationship. After all, her husband did miss the birth of their only child. Because of the grief that Daisy feels from coming out of “the ether,” she wishes that she could be as foolish and care-free as all the other women of her status in her

time.
Overall, although this passage may seem cynical of Daisy at a glance, she is actually hoping the best for her daughter in the most straightforward way possible. Daisy does not want her daughter to suffer like she does and she is only enforcing the role of women in their own lives. Daisy understands that a life of beauty and ignorance will lead to bliss and that she, Daisy, has grown past that state. Through this passage, F. Scott Fitzgerald uses the theme of beauty and simplicity, Daisy’s emotional crisis, and the idiom “out of the ether” to represent and explain the role of women in the 1920’s.