Analisi Daisy Great Gatsby

Sara Stoppa

Numero di matricola: 780677

Laboratorio di letteratura anglo-americana

Anno 2015/2016 The power of Daisy’s voice

During the years, many critics have examined the figure of Daisy from different points of

view -her role as a mother, as an enchantress and as Gatsby’s unique dream- and even if

she is generally considered a negative character, “a woman of vicious emptiness ”, she still

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exerts a great fascination on readers. The common thread of the paper will be that of

Daisy’s voice. This feature has led to different interpretations, which will be clarified in the

following pages. First of all an analysis of her mermaid voice will be provided. Secondly an

apology of Daisy will follow in order to dismiss the accusations of insincerity and amorality

from her: criticisms about Daisy have developed partly because of her voice according to

what emerges from the novel. The two examined essays are purposely contrasting in

order to provide a wider overview of the character.

Daisy as a Siren

In the history of literature, sirens appear for the first time in Homer’s Odyssey and

Apollonius’ Argonautica. They were mythological figures, half women half fish -or birds

according to other traditions- and had seducing voices which lured the sailors passing by

and led them to death among the rocks. Daughters of Acheloo and companions of

Proserpina, they were said to live in the South of Italy, in the Tyrrhenian Sea. Odysseus

stayed immune to the sirens’ fascination thanks to Circe’s piece of advice. The witch

warned him to cover his ears and those of his crew with wax in order not to listen to their

dangerous voices. Jason and the Argonauts met the sirens during their way back to Iolcos;

in that occasion Orpheus’ melodies with the lyre drowned out the sirens’ singing. Then

many classical authors introduced these mythological creatures in their works of art such

as Plato, Aristotle and Ovid. They made an appearance also in Dante’s Comedy and some

years later in the works of the Romantic poets. Among the Romantic poets, Byron and

Keats compared the sirens’ singing to the voice of the poet. In the case of the Romantics

the poet as a siren represents the moment of creativity and the fascination of his verses,

aspects that are considered generally positive.

In the case of Fitzgerald’s Daisy, her resemblance and comparison to the sirens are

negative and signify mainly deceit. The interpretation of Daisy as a mermaid has

developed on account of her voice but other elements contribute to her characterisation as

a magical creature. First of all, in Hesiod’s Catalogue of Women and in Apollonius’

Argonautica the isle of the sirens is called Anthemoessa, i.e. “Flowery”: Daisy is the name

of a flower and her surname before marrying Tom Buchanan was Fay. Elves and fays

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1 Marius Bewley “Scott Fitzgerald’s Criticism of America” in Twentieth Century Interpretation of the Great

Gatsby, ed. Ernest Lockridge (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1968)

2 John Kuhnle found in the name of the woman an allusion to the Sun, by meaning Daisy “the day’s eye”.

Anyway the woman’s name suggests a strong link with nature.

were recurrent and folkloristic characters in ancient legends and were present also in

Spencer’s The Faerie Queen and in Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream. So Daisy

Fay means “flower fairy” and this may explain the many references and allusions to

flowers all along the novel. At the beginning of it there is a description of a field full of rose

bushes between the sea and the Buchanans’ house. Moreover the Buchanans’ porch is

painted in rose colours and Nick’s appearance and attitude resemble that of a rose to

Daisy’s eyes during their first encounter. When the golf player Jordan Baker tells Nick

about Daisy’s girlhood, the young woman used to be surrounded by the orchids like a fairy

of flowers. And precisely because of her being a magical creature, she admires the plum

blossoms, the hawthorn and the daffodils in Gatsby’s kingdom but she is immune to their

enchantment. Gatsby would seduce her with flowers but a fairy of flowers can’t be tempted

by them. It is Gatsby who submits to Daisy’s charms and reaches out for her. Gatsby

compares Daisy to a rose, presumably a red rose (red is the colour of love, passion and

blood) even if daisies are white and Daisy has experienced a white girlhood; in addition to

it she is always dressed in white. Daisy’s essence is evoked also through the green light

coming out from the Buchanans’ dock. The light visible across the ocean recalls the

mariners who reach for the light of a lighthouse and in the novel both the Dutch sailors’

arrival in New York and Gatsby’s experience at sea are mentioned.

Gatsby indeed has been interpreted as an epic hero and his wanderings can be compared

to those of Odysseus. Gatsby circumnavigated America three times on board of Dan

Cody’s yacht before meeting Daisy again as well Odysseus had to face up many

peregrinations before arriving definitely in Ithaca. In Gatsby’s case Daisy is the quest, the

ultimate goal of a self-made man (the notion of the self-made man represents the main

feature of the American dream). Gatsby attributes to himself heroic features, the capability

of great things and a lucky destiny being the son of God. Moreover the beginning of the

novel in medias res and the detailed description of the dining companions and of the

parties which render Gatsby a nouveau Trimalchio have contributed to the interpretation of

The Great Gatsby as an epic poem.

The critic Stark found an assonance between the names of Daisy Fay and Ella Kaye and if

the reader bases on Stark’s theory Daisy results to be a betrayer. Ella was the woman who

succeeds in seducing Dan Cody in order to get his abundant assets and the tycoon soon

afterwards dies in suspicious circumstances. Ella also takes a great amount of money from

Gatsby. In comparison to Ella, Daisy cheats many times Gatsby. During their youth she

promised to be faithful to him, but during his military service she married Tom; in the

seventh chapter Daisy and Gatsby plan to go public but Daisy takes a step backward

despite having declared her love for Gatsby in front of her husband Tom. After the car

accident, Tom and Daisy are said to concern a plot against Gatsby and the woman doesn’t

confess her husband that is she who runs down Myrtle Wilson. This omission leads to

Gatsby’s death and to his solitary funeral, since Daisy doesn’t take part in it. In the final

chapters, the seducer Daisy has also the role of a destroyer: her insincerity and

indifference run down Myrtle, Myrtle’s husband and Gatsby. As the victims of the sirens

died in the abyss because of shipwrecks, Daisy’s victims die because of a car accident.

To sum up, the references to the flowers, to the magical powers of the fairies and the sea

make of Daisy an enchantress as the ladies of Keats’ compositions – La Belle Dame sans

Merci to take an example- or those of the Pre-Raphaelites. The element of the sea recalls

in particular the figure of the mermaid. Ovid’s three mermaids -even if the number of the

mermaids vary according to the different mythological traditions- were named “Lovely-

sounding”, “Song” and ”Charming-with-her-voice” and Daisy too has an irresistible voice:

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she actually sings just once at Gatsby’s last party and her singing is described as grieving,

yet fascinating. During the first evening at the Buchanans’ mansion Nick can’t help moving

forward his cousin as soon as she speaks, becoming a kind of mariner lured by the sirens’

singing.

“There was an excitement in her voice that men who had cared for her found difficult to

forget: a singing compulsion, a whispered ‘Listen’, a promise she had done gay, exciting

things just a while since and that there were gay, exciting things hovering next hour” .

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Daisy’s words are perceived as a unique musical composition that can’t be reproduced

and repeated. Thus people bend towards her but this subjection to the woman doesn’t

make her less attractive. Daisy’s interlocutors are compelled, i.e. forced to do it even if the

words of the woman are utter nonsense or chatter. This phenomenon of attraction is

irrational: Nick is aware that Daisy’s banter is inconclusive, however he is delighted by her

harmonious voice. There is a parallelism between his thought and his action on relation to

Daisy’s voice: if Nick is absorbed by the melody of his cousin, his body will necessarily

lean towards her and he will end up agreeing with the woman. As she interrupts her flow of

words, Nick becomes conscious of the inconsistency of the conversation and perceives

also the patent lies intrinsic in her statements. As Daisy’s spell is broken the hours spent

with her seem incongruous: what has been said by the woman seems to be part of a plot.

In the eighth chapter a new element is added about Daisy’s mermaid voice and a

revelation on this concern comes out. During a scene that resembles the dinner in the first

chapter, the five dining companions complain about the hot weather and don’t know what

to do in the afternoon. Whereas Nick, Gatsby, Tom and Jordan are weary because of the

heat, Daisy fights against the Sun and wins: she is the only one who thinks clearly and

makes decisions, whom the others submit to. As the sirens’ singing drowned out the

rushing wind according to mythology, Daisy defeats the Sun and Gatsby understands what

the voice of the beloved stands for: the trait that bridles him so much reveals to be a

symbol of corruption, a voice full of money.

In the end Gatsby’s history is that of a failure: his expectations are founded emblematically

on a fairy’s wing, which is another allusion to Daisy’s surname. The failure resembles the

disappointment of the knight protagonist in Keats’ La Belle Dame sans Merci : dreams

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don’t come true. The Continent of America, described as a green breast by the Dutch

sailors and by Gatsby, turns to be a wasteland. Men are covered with ashes and a

powerful description of the American decay is provided at the beginning of the second

chapter.

Daisy’s Apology

Some male interpreters of “The Great Gatsby” such as Bewley, Ornstein, Kazin and

Fiedler have provided a polarisation Good/Evil for the characters of Gatsby and Daisy

3 The Greek names of the sirens were respectively Aglaophonus, Molpe and Thexiope.

4 Francis Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, chap. 1, p. 12.

5 Fitzgerald hints at Keats’ compositions “La Belle Dame sans Merci” and “To the Nightingale”. In particular

there is a reference to this bird in the first chapter, when Daisy says to Nick that she has just seen a

nightingale on the lawn.

respectively. Thus the w