Power And Control Of Daisy In The Great Gatsby

In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, Daisy possesses extreme power and control over Jay Gatsby. Daisy, though a woman in a predominantly male-dominated time period, uses her attractiveness to manipulate the ‘great’ Jay Gatsby to her advantage. As the novel progresses, Daisy has many different roles. She is initially portrayed as Tom’s trophy wife without much purpose, aside from representing Tom’s ‘prize’ for success. As we learn more, we find out about her and Gatsby’s past five-year relationship. It turned out that Gatsby had actually proposed to Daisy, but was turned down due to Gatsby’s lack of wealth at the time. Knowing this, Gatsby had been working to build his wealth to win her over. Gatsby’s perception of their relationship allows Daisy to take control of him and his benefits. This proves dangerous for Gatsby, as on page 161 Gatsby was shot and killed “No telephone message…the amorphous trees.” This was a product of Gatsby taking the fall for Daisy's misdoing of accidentally killing Myrtle Wilson.

Throughout the novel, Daisy stays consistent with her persona of Innocense and ignorance, however, there is a part in the novel in which she breaks this facade, one of these occurrences happens on page 12 when interacting with Tom “”Look” she complained… specimen of a----” (Fitzgerald, 12) This type of behavior by women in this time period may not have been warranted, but this didn’t prove to be much of an issue for her. Daisy seemed to act entitled; however, Tom brushed it off quite seamlessly. On page 92 Gatsby is seen showing off all his luxuries and riches to Daisy in the form of shirts. “He took out…beautiful shirts before.” (Fitzgerald, 92) This shows how Daisy successfully manipulated Gatsby and inevitably got to his