| Nick Carraway, the narrator, makes much of Daisy's | | | | exhaust our wretched audience with wariness." |
| beauty and her sultry voice. But it is through dialogue | | | | But let's return to Daisy's repetitions: "I looked |
| and action --through her own words and duplicitous | | | | outdoors for a minute, and it's very romantic |
| behavior-- that we can detect her mental flaws. | | | | outdoors." Daisy's idealized world is a chimerical, |
| Lord Francis Bacon in his essay on Beauty said, | | | | fabulous, enchanted dimension where she hopes-with |
| "There is no excellent beauty that hath not some | | | | enough faith-she might find love in the form of a |
| strangeness in the proportion." This quality of | | | | rescuing prince. |
| strangeness is the fact that she's "slow." As the | | | | She sees in her cousin Nick as a pleasant, |
| story progresses it becomes clear that some things | | | | unthreatening figure, who is fun to be with, who is |
| go over her head and as a result she tends to | | | | discreet, and who seems loyal to her. Nick for Daisy |
| distrust and doubt what to others are acceptable | | | | is someone who will not cause hurt to her as Jay |
| events. In one instance Nick perceives this flaw when | | | | Gatsby did with their separation, and as Tom |
| he says, "She saw something awful in the very | | | | Buchanan does in their unhappy marriage. |
| simplicity she failed to understand." (GG, 107). | | | | "Ah," she cried, "you look so cool." |
| Understanding doesn't come easy to Daisy, and when | | | | "You always look so cool," she repeated. |
| she offers an opinion, it is always an inane opinion | | | | As she repeats the word 'cool' she emphasizes her |
| that often verges on absurdity. Notice how she deals | | | | sentiments that she finds in Nick a benign soul. When |
| with one single idea by repeating the same idea three | | | | Daisy accepts Nick's invitation to visit with Gatsby, |
| times: | | | | little did she know that Nick would be opening the |
| "In two weeks it'll be the longest day in the year." | | | | flood-gates of adultery, misery, crime and evasion, |
| She looked at us all radiantly. "Do you always watch | | | | and much unhappiness. |
| for the longest day of the year and then miss it? I | | | | "Come back in an hour, Ferdie." Then in grave |
| always watch for the longest day in the year and | | | | murmur: "His name is Ferdie." |
| then miss it." | | | | When she repeats the name Ferdie in a "grave |
| If you count the pronoun "it" you will realize that she | | | | murmur," what the narrator signals is the gravity of |
| has mentioned the longest day of the year five | | | | her unennobling actions; we know that has sealed her |
| times. Now, how many of us-unless we are physicists | | | | fate to committing adultery. |
| or meteorologists-- entertain the idea to "always | | | | Once Daisy enters Gatsby's mansion, there's no |
| watch" for the longest day of he year only to miss | | | | escape from that castle of doom. Once in Gatsby's |
| it? Is it possible that she associates the summer | | | | inner sanctum, dazzled by the opulence, she can only |
| solstice (June 20-21) with a personal date that she | | | | spew trivial observations, as when she sees the |
| should both simultaneously remember and forget? | | | | collection of shirts: |
| June seems to be an ill-starred month in that summer | | | | "They're such beautiful shirts," she sobbed, her voice |
| of her discontent. | | | | muffled in the thick folds. "It makes me sad because |
| For, "In June she marries Tom Buchanan of Chicago, | | | | I've never seen such--such beautiful shirts before." |
| with more pomp and circumstance than Louisville | | | | Oxford shirts were imported from London, and were |
| ever knew before," Jordan Baker tells Nick. Since she | | | | the expensive uniform that people in Wall Street |
| married Tom in June, then Daisy may be alluding to | | | | would wear. Since Nick was a bond trader, he |
| her wedding anniversary date; a date that she | | | | presumably knew about such beautiful shirts. We can |
| watches for with painful expectancy only to dismiss | | | | also note a symbolic connection to Gatsby, as he |
| it. One should also recall that on the eve of her | | | | was referred to as an "Oxford man." |
| wedding day she receives a letter (presumably from | | | | What is surprising is that she blurts out not only |
| Gatsby) which distresses her immensely, moving her | | | | platitudes, but also absurdities as in the following |
| to the point of drunken stupor. As the story unfolds, | | | | examples: "I'll tell you a family secret," she whispered |
| we learn that Daisy is unhappy in her marriage to | | | | enthusiastically. "It's about the butler's nose. Do you |
| Tom, knowing that he is not only a womanizer but | | | | want to hear about the butler's nose?" |
| also a violent and abusive man. | | | | But again, what appears an absurdity (to talk about |
| A character that not only repeats the same words | | | | noses in a serious book) may be pseudo symbols to |
| with each utterance, but also repeats trivialities and | | | | depict "the help," just as the houses (Daisy's, Jay's, |
| stutters has to be slow, or a least limited, if not | | | | and Tom's) are representative of the "upper crust." |
| feeble-minded. The British philosopher John Locke said | | | | (p.13). |
| of humans, "in their thinking and reasonings within | | | | Nick refers to Daisy's laugh as "an absurd, charming |
| themselves, make use of Words instead of Ideas." In | | | | little laugh." (p.8) |
| our own times, the linguist Noam Chomsky sees | | | | Daisy also stutters: "I'm p-paralyzed with happiness." |
| language as something that grows in the brain. In this | | | | (p8.) |
| light, when Nick portrays Daisy's with a paucity of | | | | But much unhappines she reveals when the nurse |
| speech, we have no choice but to see her as an | | | | informs her that her baby is a little girl. Acknowledging |
| empty-headed beauty with little or no intellectual | | | | the plight of the American woman of her times she |
| acumen. | | | | says: "I am glad it's a girl. And I hope she'll be a |
| The Renaissance scholar Erasmus of Rotterdam, in | | | | fool--that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a |
| his Copia of Words and Ideas-a treatise on the | | | | beautiful little fool." This poignant remark shows |
| varying of speech-says, | | | | Daisy's little self-esteem and resignation to a life of |
| "In particular, however, it will be useful in avoiding | | | | utter dependency. The French moralist, La |
| tautology, that is repetition of the same word or | | | | Rochefoucauld, writes in maxim 207: "People do not |
| expression, a vice not only unseemly but also | | | | grow mentally after age 25, nor do they grow older |
| offensive. It not infrequently happens that we have | | | | mentally. There is little wisdom based on |
| to say the same thing several times, in which case, if | | | | understanding - most wisdom consists of prettified |
| destitute of copia we will either be at a loss, or, like | | | | disillusions and is based on bitter experience." Within |
| the cuckoo, croak out the same words repeatedly, | | | | the realm of the story, the heroine is then reduced |
| and be unable to give different shape or form to the | | | | to one more in that mass of women who live by the |
| thought. And thus betraying our want of eloquence | | | | light of prettified disillusions and bitter experience. |
| we will appear ridiculous ourselves and utterly | | | | |