english essay

In The Great Gatsby Daisy Buchanan is one of the main characters. Daisy is a woman who married rich when she had a choice and lives on what society would think of her rather than following her own dreams and heart. Fitzgerald uses figurative language to convey Daisy’s motives. Fitzgerald conveys this by Daisy’s attachment to money, her hopes for her family and her lost dreams.

In the book, Daisy was very attached to her money and Fitzgerald shows it though his language, “the only completely stationary object in the room was an enormous couch on which two young women were buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon…” (12) In this quote the couch is symbolic of money and the two girls are buoyed to it, meaning they can not escape it. They are attached to it no matter what they do. Another example that shows Daisy’s attachment to his money, “…and the day before the wedding he gave her a string of pearls valued at three hundred and fifty thousand dollars.” (75-76)This quote is from Jordan’s point of view the day before the wedding when Daisy is drunk and at first she wants to marry Gatsby but after they sober her up, she marries Tom because he gave her a necklace that is worth three hundred and fifty thousand dollars. This shows Tom’s ability to provide for her and her attachment to money. That is why she chose Tom just because of his abilty to support her.

Fitzgerald uses diction to convey Daisy’s hopes for her family, “I’m glad it’s a girl and I hope she’ll be a fool, and that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.” (21)This quote is saying that Daisy wants her daughter to be the same way that she is. She wants her daughter to rely on marrying rich also and not finding true love. And thus continuing the path of getting married to please society and not because you are truly in love.

Fitzgerald also conveys Daisy’s lost dreams trough metaphors and her subconscious. “They’re such beautiful shirts…it makes me sad because I’ve never seen such beautiful shirts before.” (92) In this quote the shirts are a metaphor for marriage. Daisy is seeing Gatsby’s shirts and wishing that she married him. She chose Tom because he was rich and she did not want to leave the safety of money, but she did not know that Gatsby was also rich or was going to be rich in the future. An example of when Fitzgerald uses Daisy’s subconscious to convey her true feeling is when she is drunk the night before her weading to Tom. ‘“Take ‘em down-stairs and give ‘em back to whoever they belong to. Tell ‘em all Daisy’s change’ her mine. Say: Daisy’s change’ her mine.’” (81 This shows that Daisy wants to marry Gatsby because when she is drunk, she is 100 percent herself and she is not being affected by what society and her family wants her to be. The reader is seeing straight into her subconscious. She is purely following her heart. But once she is sobered up, she marries Tom because it is the “right thing to do”. Thus she loses her dreams.

It is has become evident thought Fitzgerald’s use of figurative language, that he wanted Daisy to be attached to her money, to want her daughter to turn out just like her, and that her dreams of a perfect life are broken.