F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is a tale of intrigue, passion, and the exploration of human interactions and emotions. It focuses on Jay Gatsby and his relationship with Daisy Buchanan, an old flame who he never truly got over. Although she is married to another, she still has feelings for him and they rekindle a connection once reunited. Along the way, Daisy deals with feelings for both Tom and Gatsby and feels pulled in opposite directions. Although fragile and emotional, she is a very sympathetic character. Daisy 's emotional decisions highlight the struggle for young women at the time who dealt with their own wants versus the expectations of society over marriage.
Daisy felt forced to marry Tom for social status rather than Gatsby
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Although she loves both of them, her indecision stems from her struggle between what she wants and what society expects. She wants to marry Gatsby, for love and whatever it entails. Unfortunately, society wants her to marry Tom for everything but. She has loved both individually, Gatsby right away and Tom gradually, but when forced to choose she feels torn and can 't decide. While Tom gloats in the background, she explains woefully to Gatsby, "Oh, you want too much… I love you now—isn 't that enough? I can 't help what 's past… I did love [Tom] once—but I loved you too" (132). She is in tears at this point and breaks down. She feels he "want[s] too much." He won 't accept her choosing him over Tom, he expects her to take back her love too, and Daisy is unable to. The revelation makes everything tense, and they split up to head home from the hotel they were staying at. As Daisy drives herself and Gatsby home, Myrtle Wilson runs in front of the car, thinking it 's someone else and is hit. Gatsby describes the accident and how "…Daisy turned away from the woman toward the other car, and then she lost her nerve and turned back" (143-144). Gatsby says he will take the blame, but Daisy is left with the guilt of having killed someone. It may be a metaphor for her relationships with Tom and Gatsby, showing her indecisiveness. She begins to turn away from Myrtle, just as she began to leave Tom for Gatsby, but eventually turns back towards the road, and Tom. At the time, societal expectations were extremely powerful and Daisy eventually