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How Does Daisy Buchanan Symbolize In The Great Gatsby

1258 Words6 Pages

For millennia, authors have used colors as symbols and we, as a society, have come to associate certain hues with corresponding ideas and emotions. In his novel The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald often uses color as a descriptor in order to sway readers’ opinions of characters and situations. Daisy Buchanan and Jordan Baker are two such characters and Fitzgerald uses color imagery to encourage specific perceptions of them, particularly by portraying Daisy as a seemingly innocent, angelic figure, while depicting Jordan as a liar and a fraud. Though looking at their actions reveals that neither woman is truly blameless, observing Fitzgerald’s color choices can allow us to ascertain who they once were, how others view them, and who they believe …show more content…

Hebrew writers did not sing her praises, and neither does Nick. While she shares the sun-attributes of Daisy in her ‘golden shoulder’ and ‘autumn-leaf yellow of her hair,’ she belongs to the dying day and the season of the declining sun. (Stallman 7-8)
He is in clear agreement here with Nick’s display of Jordan’s corruption and he believes that it is expressed through Nick’s color imagery. This is not, nevertheless, all there is to Jordan. Through her actions, she makes statements about herself that communicate more than words ever could. Nick draws attention to “Jordan's fingers, [which are] powdered white over their tan” (Fitzgerald 116). Jordan’s choice to powder her fingers in an attempt to mask their true color implies that she is not only aware of her undesirable coloration, but that she is actively trying to hide it. Jordan is conscious of her immorality and wants to keep it concealed, which is why she “instinctively avoided clever, shrewd men” (Fitzgerald 57). Jordan views herself as a liar and a fraud; she just hopes that no one else sees what she

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In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s masterpiece of literature “The Great Gatsby”, the eponymous character is shown to be an eccentric man with a shrouded past, which only becomes revealed to the reader in the final third portion of the book. Through his past, and many other subtleties laced into the book by Fitzgerald, it is heavily hinted at that Gatsby himself is African-American, being pale enough to pass as a white man in West Egg. The inklings of this idea are planted through this novel, both overt and symbolic, such as the geography laid out by Fitzgerald and characters’ placement in that, character interactions between Gatsby and harsh racists like Tom Buchanan, and Gatsby’s past that got him to West Egg and found him his fortune. Gatsby being black was a very hidden yet powerful statement by Fitzgerald on the upward mobility of African-Americans during the 1920’s when racism and racial violence were becoming extremely prevalent, and the lengths these people had to go to to achieve that mobility, with no guaranteed success.

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How Is Daisy Justified In The Great Gatsby

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She is routinely linked with the color white (a white dress, white flowers, white car, and so on),. Daisy Buchanan is the story’s adored sweetheart in The Great Gatsby. Daisy’s name could be mistaken as an appropriate one with her innoncent and pure flowers but at her center lays the yellow of her moral corruption. While she seems like a perfect lady, there are some hidden problems. Daisy is the one that everyone man desires and every girl wants to be.

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Examples Of Daisy Buchanan In The Great Gatsby

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Melissa Sandoval-Suarez Mrs. Marcuccio American literature April 26 2023 Who or What to Blame “They were careless people, they smashed up things 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” (Fitzgerald 123). This is used to describe Tom and Daisy Buchanan, the people responsible for Gatspys death. These characters appear in Fitzgerald’s American classic, The Great Gatsby. Daisy Buchanan was born into old money, narcissistic, and an old lover of Gatspys of whom he hasn’t gotten over yet. Tom is a violent entitled man who uses others for his own gain and will stop at nothing to prevent lose of control.

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How Does Daisy Buchanan Symbolize In The Great Gatsby

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The 1920s was a time of fun, jazz and being rebellious. During this time, ironically, prohibition of alcohol was a forced factor which led to some disobedient conduct. In the novel, “The Great Gatsby”, we see behind the scenes of new money vs. old money. Daisy Buchanan is old money because she was born into wealth and never knew life without it. With that being said, she lives in East Egg with her Husband Tom and their daughter, Pammy.

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In the novel, The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald portrays women in an extremely negative light. The idea Fitzgerald gives off is that women are only good for their looks and their bodies and that they should just be a sex symbol rather than actually use their heads. He treats women like objects and the male characters in the novel use women, abuse women, and throw them aside. I believe that Daisy, Jordan and Myrtle are prime examples of women in The Great Gatsby being treated poorly.

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