Character profile - Daisy

• Daisy Buchanan is the eponymous character’s love interest and the narrator’s cousin, born in Louisville and hailing from 'Old Money'.
• Daisy lives in East Egg with her husband, Tom Buchanan.
• During the First World War, Daisy meets Jay Gatsby, a military officer stationed near her home, and they fall in love.
• Gatsby does not reveal his true background and claims to be from a wealthy family.
• While Gatsby went off to the war, Daisy promised to wait for him but married Tom Buchanan instead.
• Devastated by the news but equally hopeful that they could be together, Gatsby engages in illicit business deals to make his life financially compatible for Daisy’s tastes.
• Daisy, while in awe of Gatsby's commitment, is afraid to leave the stable life that she knows with Tom.
• When Daisy allows Gatsby to take the blame for Myrtle's death for which she is responsible and leaves town with Tom instead of attending the funeral, her true nature is exposed.
• Daisy's name captures her key attributes: she is delicate and decorative.
• Daisy's childhood is white and golden, and her "world" is "redolent of orchids and pleasant".
• Daisy's cynicism about her role and her daughter's future role is signalled by her statement that she hopes her daughter will be "a beautiful little fool" because "that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world".
• Daisy is surrounded by an aura of wealth, which manifests in her "low, thrilling", "glowing and singing" voice.
• Daisy's charm lies as much - or more - in her mythology than in her physical persona.
• Nick is captivated by Daisy's exquisite beauty, which masks her essential lack of character and her reluctance to take any responsibility for her life and her actions.
• Daisy is depicted as a seeming island of purity in a sea of debauchery.
• Daisy's beauty and charm is what makes her the central female character.
• Daisy's mythology is one of money, purity and ease.
• The gender contradictions inherent in American society in the time the novel is set have their counterpart in Daisy’s outward submissiveness versus her inner cynicism.
• Nick sets Daisy apart from her society peers as having an "absolutely perfect reputation" due to her not drinking.
• Daisy's character is based on Fitzgerald's wife, Zelda, both of whom enjoy wealth and material comforts.
• Daisy conforms to the old-fashioned Southern model of femininity, common to the geographic area which she comes from.
• Nick appears to condemn their treatment of other people, reducing the lower classes to subhumans or objects.
• Daisy is portrayed as unpredictable and Gatsby admits that she was "all excited" when she chooses Tom, a term that seems infantilising.
• Daisy's passivity is highlighted as she waits for her life to be shaped, and she is not fussy about the nature of the force that shapes it, revealing her lack of moral principles and foreshadowing her actions at the end of the novel, when she abandons Gatsby in favour of comfort.
• Daisy's ability to face her present reality allows her to pursue the opportunistic affair with Gatsby, providing her with temporary satisfaction as she knows she is not bound by her actions.
• Myrtle's impulsive pursuit of an affair with Tom contrasts with Daisy's calculated affair with Gatsby, as time for Myrtle acts as an object of fear, as she is afraid of living a wasted life like her husband, trapped in the Valley of Ashes and its decaying effect on her dreams and aspirations.
• Nick's final description of the Buchanans is similar to his initial description of them, as a unit who moved together with indifference.
• Daisy is associated with nature and musicality, indicating her natural beauty, but despite these associations, both she and her world are judged as artificial by Nick, toning down this otherwise romantic description.
• The contrast and negation of the words 'happy' and 'unhappy' shows how social security is a selfish middle-way that provides sustainability and endurance to Buchanan's marriage and successfully destroys Daisy and Gatsby's relationship.
• Money and social status do not guarantee the Buchanans happiness, as they both search for love or pleasure in their extra-marital affairs, but provides an anchor which they "retreat" to after acquiring or temporarily indulging in their desires.
• In 1920, the 19th amendment was passed which gave women the right to vote, but their role remained relatively unchanged.
• 1920s America is referred to as the 'Roaring Twenties', the age of jazz, of Prohibition but liquor in great quantities, and of the flapper: a woman with a bob and painted lips, found on the dance floor doing the Charleston.
• The focus on the way Daisy's voice says things as opposed to what she says can be attributed to the patriarchal gaze of Nick (or Fitzgerald).
• Gatsby makes a comment about Daisy's voice, stating that it is full of money, revealing her calculated control of it.
• Daisy's voice is described as having a "singing compulsion" and is "glowing and singing" (Chapter 1), symbolizing her captivity to commitment.
• Daisy's voice is a charming acceptance of her position that enables her to continue inhabiting the social class and systems she prefers.
• Daisy's voice serves as a coping mechanism for the things she has no will to change in her world.
• The third interpretation of Daisy's behavior is that she is simply overwhelmed by the emotion of their reunion, but her subsequent behavior sheds doubt on this thesis.
• Daisy's sobs could be her reaction to her realization of the lengths Gatsby has taken to impress her and grant her happiness.
• Daisy's voice holds immense power and enchants various characters throughout the novel.