3. A Look into Daisy

The Great Gatsby

F. Scott Fitzgerald

One thing Daisy said to Nick when he was at her house that first night with Tom and Ms. Baker, Daisy was talking about her baby girl, and recalling that at her birth, she had said that she was glad her baby was a girl, "I hope she'll be a fool- that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool" (Fitzgerald, 17).

I hate- HATE that she said this. It reinforces how I see her as weak, as hopeless, as lost. He husband is already with another woman, and she goes on to say that she hopes her daughter is just as much of a fool as she is, well not only that, she wants her to be beautiful, so she can be like prize money. She gives up hope in her daughter from her very birth, meaning that she assumes her daughter won't amount to anything intelligent, but just that she grows up to be a meaningless prize, an empty, beautiful statue. Soon after this admittance to Nick, she justifies it by telling him that she's cynical, that she's seen everything, and understands the world for what it is. She verifies that she knows where women stand at that point in society, and she is intelligent for realizing that that is not necessarily right, but she is too lazy and too much of a fool to care to defy the traditional standard of women. I do not like the insight I saw into Daisy with her talk with Nick, I'm unbelievably disappointed with her method of mothering her child.