Why Is Daisy Important In The Great Gatsby

Daisy Embodies the Roaring Twenties

In the novel The Great Gatsby, the author F. Scott Fitzgerald creates Daisy Buchanan to illustrate the traits that embodies the Roaring Twenties where people pursue material objects, is carefree and fickle, and lacks morality and virtue. According to history.com, “the most familiar symbol of the Roaring Twenties is probably the flapper: a young woman with bobbed hair and short skirts who drank, smoked and said unladylike things, in addition to being more sexually free than previous generations” (History.com Editors). As one of the main characters in the novel, Daisy is young and beautiful and fits the description of a flapper. She is from a wealthy family in Louisville, Kentucky, and she is married to

Early in the novel, Daisy says about her daughter, “I hope she'll be a fool - that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool” (Fitzgerald, 39). When Daisy says this, it is right after her husband Tom leaves to take a phone call from his mistress. She is saying that women in her era should adhere to society’s expectation of women to be beautiful, carefree and simple-minded rather than intelligent. This is her way of ignoring life’s problems and enjoying life. Besides being carefree, Daisy is fickle. For example, Daisy promises Gatsby that she will wait for him. However, she grows tired of waiting for Gatsby and ends up picking Tom for his money. The text states, “Daisy began to move again with the season; suddenly she was again keeping half a dozen dates a day with half a dozen men and drowsing asleep at dawn with the beads and chiffon of an evening dress tangled among dying orchids on the floor beside her bed” (Fitzgerald, 343). And during the big confrontation between Daisy, Gatsby and Tom in chapter seven, Daisy says to Gatsby, “I did love him once - but I loved you too” and tells Tom that she is leaving him (Fitzgerald, 302). However, she quickly changes her mind after Tom reveals that Gatsby is a bootlegger. All these instances show that Daisy is fickle and

In chapter four of the novel, Jordan tells Nick that Daisy was popular with the officers. As an eighteen year old debutante during the war, she slept around. In addition, she starts an extramarital affair with Gatsby after she sees how wealthy he is. Last, the author shows that Daisy lacks morality and virtue when she allows Gatsby to take the blame for Myrtle’s death. She does this after claiming she loves him and then changing her mind when she finds out that Gatsby made his money from criminal activities. Instead of telling the truth, she reconciles with Tom and they move without leaving a forwarding address. Nick says, “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” (Fitzgerald,