Examples Of Daisy Buchanan In The Great Gatsby

Throughout The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald describes Daisy Buchanan almost solely on her voice, as compared to other female characters’ physical descriptions. Right before this passage, Jordan’s physical appearance shows through Nick’s narrative, as well as giving later descriptions of her bright hair and tan skin. Nick reveals later that Jordan is a famous golfer, further speaking to her physicality. He writes, “She was a slender, small-breasted girl, with an erect carriage, which she accentuated by throwing her body backward at the shoulders like a young cadet. Her gray sun-strained eyes looking back at me with polite reciprocal curiosity out of a wan, charming, discontented face” (Fitzgerald 11). When Myrtle Wilson is introduced in Chapter

While most women would use their looks to reel men in, Daisy’s quietest words are enough to entice men. This element plays to the myth of Greek Sirens, who used their enchanting voices to lure sailors to their end. While her voice might sound lovely, it seems contradictory to her true character revealed by the ending of Nick’s story. After running into Tom in the last few pages, Nick has a realization and writes, “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made…” (179). Like Sirens, Daisy charms the people in her life, but ends up leaving them heartbroken and desolate, while also alluding to the temporary fulfillness of material goods and destruction it

His ambivalence towards Daisy mirrors his ambivalence towards money, both of which shown separately. In Chapter III, Nick’s descriptions of the party manifest the gaudiness of it all. However, later in the chapter, he claims that “the scene” became “something significant, elemental, and profound” (47). These instances show his wavering opinion of the rich, furthermore indicating his feelings towards his cousin. Habib’s definition of “modernist irony” creates a better understanding of Nick's ambivalence. Modernist irony was “developed from Romantic irony, becoming even more skeptical and self-doubting, as it both rejected prevailing values and institutions and at the same time remained involved with them” (Habib 82). No matter Nick’s feelings towards wealth, he still is a part of that culture. He constantly surrounds himself with people like Jay Gatsby, Daisy Buchanan, Tom Buchanan, and Jordan Baker, therefore surrounding himself in the same community he considers ridiculous and