Thursday, September 16, 2010
Daisy's Petals.
How many petals can one Daisy have? For Daisy Buchanans there is the one she lets everyone see, which is elegant, flirty and fake. Then there is the side she only slow in private, which is depressed, mournful, and yet truthful. "Daisy's murmur was only to make people learn toward her; an irrelevant criticism that made it no less charming, (pg. 9)" Daisy makes these kinds of remarks because she is the wife of the new money-man Tom Buchanans. Then in the latest chapter (IV) Daisy reveals her younger self, still flirtatious but with a tough of lass added to her life. "After that she didn't play around with soldiers any more...(pg. 75)" (I'm guessing that the soldier she was meant to meet was Gatsby?) this quote shoes that daisy was somehow hurt by another solider. We've seen who Daisy has become with Tom, dependent and slightly arrogant since she has become an adult. The question I pose is, what will happen when Daisy meets Gatsby?
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A couple of thoughts on your post...
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, the reason given that she didn't play around with soldiers any more was one occasion in which she wanted to go to New York to see a particular soldier off, while packing her mother caught her, and Daisy was forbade to go. After that she didn't have relationships with soldiers, I personally assume because she didn't want to become emotionally attached.
Perhaps it was here, this idea of not becoming emotionally attached, where she started to lose her grip on the innocent, flirtatious life which she had seemingly so blissfully lived up until then.
Then again, this would clash with what you put forward as Daisy's dependence on Tom. Quite honestly however, I haven't seem much of a dependence. It seems more to me like she's simply being passive towards him and letting things happen as they happen rather than depending on him being around. This would certainly line up with her being emotionally detached from relationships, and could even provide explanation to why she agreed to the marriage even after to vocally exclaiming that she had changed her mind the day before.
And to answer your question, I think Daisy will be tempted to restore her ability to become emotionally attached once she encounters Gatsby again, but it will certainly be a long and strenuous process for her.
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ReplyDeleteAlthough Daisy showed a spark of intelligence in the first few chapters, I feel that she is a rather one-dimensional character. Her emotional detachment is a product of her wealth. Ever since she was a little kid, she was used to her money acting as a "shield." If you had a lot of money back then in America, there was little that could harm you. Cops, judges, and universities could be bribed. Imagine living a life where it is impossible to fail. In this sense, Daisy became detached from the normal emotional contrasts of humans....you could bring up the importance of yin and yang at this point.
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