Daisy Buchanan In The Great Gatsby

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Daisy Buchanan, a fair skinned, blonde, upperclass woman, is the perfect symbol of wealth and beauty in the 1920’s. Throughout Fitzgerald's timeless novel, her character is in constant association with the color white, ranging from her car before her marriage to the dress she wore when Nick first laid eyes on her. This affiliation first becomes apparent in a scene the author detailedly illustrates saying she, “[laid] upon an enormous couch, like [a] silver idol weighing down [her] own white dress against the singing breeze of the fans. (Fitzgerald, 115) This symbolism is of major importance because it gives the reader insight into how Nick views her, morally uncorrupt and pure. However like the name Daisy implies, she has a center of gold, …show more content…
Physically she is described as a “thickish figure of a woman...in [her] middle thirties, faintly stout, but [carrying] her surplus flesh sensuously as some woman can. Her face, above a spotted dress of dark blue crepe-de-chine, contained no facet or gleam of beauty but there was an immediately perceptible vitality about her.” (Fitzgerald, 23) Her body type and plain face show a lack of real beauty. While Daisy is shown in a white dress, Myrtles blue dress portrays her as a commoner and is symbolic for the darker side of Tom. She lusts for wealth as much as Daisy, so much so that she allows Tom Buchanan to treat her very unjustly because she believes he is of higher-ranking. Recounting the story of how they met, Myrtle recalls, “When we came into the station he...pressed against my arm, and so I told him I'd have to call a policeman, but he knew I lied. I was so excited that when I got into a taxi with him I didn't hardly know I wasn't getting into a subway train.’ (Fitzgerald, 121) This complete lack of disrespect on Tom’s part makes Myrtle giddy, showing the lack of respect she has for herself. The role she plays in society is the wife of a man whom she believes she is better than, and the mistress of a man whom she believes she is worse than. She is constantly trying to be a woman that she is not with one foot in the enchanting, rich pool and the other in her sullen, drab