The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby

F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Great Gatsby is a symbolic novel of the disintegration of the American dream in an era of extraordinary prosperity and material excess. On the surface, we see that it is a story about the love between a man and a woman but the overall theme is the collapse of the American dream in society. We find that every character in their own way is searching for their American dream but as a result, their desire for wealth and pleasure, caused them to find themselves lost in the corruption of the aristocrat society.

Daisy is one of the characters that is trying to search for her American dream but the readers don't really notice this because it seems that Daisy has everything already - wealth, a husband, love and family. It is everything she could possibly want but as we get to know Daisy, the reader sees that there is something else Daisy desires besides wealth and luxurious material. "I'm glad it's a girl. And I hope she'll be a fool - that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool." - Pg 21. Daisy's America dream is to be this "beautiful little fool" she envisions. Daisy is beautiful and it is told through the characters that she is charming and beautiful but they could see right through her. They knew what she wanted in life and the fact that she was void of any loyalty or care. Daisy sought after this image of being this "beautiful little fool" so that she could hide her selfish ways and put on this fake faÐ*ade so the other characters would see she is innocent.

Throughout the novel, Daisy acts snooty and stuck-up around the other characters as if she is better then them. She also acts very child-like when she cries over "beautiful shirts." "They're such beautiful shirts," she sobbed, her voice muffled in the thick folds. "It makes me sad because I've never seen such - such beautiful shirts before." - Pg 98. From this it shows that she only cares about luxurious material. Through her actions, we see that Daisy is not this girl that we should sympathize or look up to as "great" compared to Gatsby. "Even if we are cousins. You didn't come to my wedding. I wasn't back from the war. That's true. She hesitated. Well, I've had a very bad time, Nick, and I'm pretty cynical about everything." - Pg 21. She doesn't really understand the harsh reality of life and hides behind her wealth and when she doesn't even remember that Nick was fighting in the war which was the reason he couldn't attend her wedding, she seemed as if it wasn't as important as her engagement.

Nick notices and realizes that Daisy isn't the right person for Gatsby because of her greed and her expectations of being wealthy and keeping her status in the aristocrat society. "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..." - Pg 180-181. It is not until the end, the readers are revealed to Daisy's true identity. In the novel, we are given snippets of Daisy's character but when we see that Daisy doesn't truly love Gatsby and lets him take the blame for her mistakes; she is seen as a selfish and careless person. She no longer