The thing about Daisy Buchanan is that she is an angel, a gift to all readers, the light of my life and the joy of my existence. A fictional female Kumail Nanjiani of the 1920s in terms of the pure happiness she gives me.
I’ve known Daisy is damn good since I first read this book. (Fun fact: I first read this when I was 13, in the back seat of the family minivan, on a road trip to Disney World or something. While thoughts of princesses and mouse-shaped ice cream bars danced in my siblings’ heads, I was reading about moral depravity in the Jazz Age.) (And all because I had read online that when a college interviewer asks about your favorite book, you’re supposed to say “The Great Gatsby.” And for some damn reason, I thought to myself, “Yeah, it’s definitely urgent that I, an eighth-grader, be prepared for a college interview at any time.”) (I only had to do one college interview anyway, because only one was required and OF COURSE I didn’t opt for the non-mandatory ones because CAN YOU IMAGINE. Guess what? The interviewer actually asked me what my favorite book was. Guess what I didn’t say? “The damn great Gatsby!” I panicked and said, I think, “All the Light We Cannot See,” because it was the first non-embarrassing book I’d ever read that popped into my head. My life is just one mistake after another.)
Anyway. I loved Daisy then. I loved her two years later when my English class read it and it was VERY clear that I was “not supposed to like” her and instead worship Gatsby’s childish ass. Which, no. Imagine that: fifteen-year-old me, who just decided she was going to be cool now (a process that involved 15 coats of mascara and no other makeup—neither over the top nor good-looking) in a room full of twenty fifteen-year-olds, including cool ones, who all VEHEMENTARILY AGREE ON SOMETHING.
But I stuck up for Daisy anyway. Because I have PRIORITIES.
My senior year of high school, my morals, my soul, and my capacity for empathy were challenged by six students and one teacher in AP Lit. But I won the award for best English student of my graduating class, so I honestly think that’s an indication that I won that debate, too.
And now I’m here, ready to present the same debate to all of you.
And win.
Obviously
But let’s get into it. Here’s why Daisy is not only innocent of the VILLAINLY accusations made against her, but she’s also the best character in this book and an absolute angel/delight/gift from heaven. (Does that mean F. Scott Fitzgerald is God?)
What should she have done?
So put yourself in Daisy’s shoes, shall we? Let’s go way back. You’re a teenage girl who is the hottest shit in all of Louisville. (That’s a big deal, apparently.) You have SIX DATES A DAY! The phone never stops ringing!!! You have nothing but options!!
Just kidding, just kidding. You really only have one option, and that is to marry a rich man. Aren’t historical gender expectations great? I certainly do!
And then one day this fucking awesome guy shows up. And you hang out all the time, and he’s so charming and hot, and you get along great. You kiss really well. The guy is a captain in the army and hints that he’s doing super well financially. It’s perfect. It’s the best case scenario for you.
(This guy is Jay Gatsby, by the way. In case I haven’t made that clear yet.)
Then the guy has to go to war. It sucks, sucks, sucks. You write letters back and forth, but all the while your family is pressuring you. Society is pressuring you. Your friends are making suggestive comments about you not being married yet.
The war is over. Sweet relief! Jay is coming home!
But no. He’s in Oxford for some reason? And he tells you he can’t come home? And your letters get sadder and sadder because you’ve run out of time. The war is over and you have nothing to tell your parents.
So those six dates a day start again.
And then this guy shows up in town. He’s really rich. And muscular. And a real socialite. And he’s not from Louisville – he’s a way out. You can see the world with him. And the best part is, he’s obsessed with you.
(This guy is Tom Buchanan.)
So what do you do? You can do nothing. You must marry him.
And when you get a letter from Jay “Too Little Too Late” Gatsby, you scream and cry and try to stop the wedding, but there is nothing you can do. You must marry Tom “Seems to be OK” Buchanan.
Two: Now that’s what I call “oops”
The OTHER thing you get to do in this life as Daisy Buchanan is have kids whether you want to or not.
For a while, Tom doesn’t bother you. In fact, for a while, you really love him. He does nice things like carry you so your shoes don’t touch the ground and the honeymoon is great, etc. etc. So even though you don’t have the slightest choice about whether or not you want kids, you think if you get pregnant, maybe it won’t be so bad.
And then Tom turns out to be a s**t. You have to leave these places you love where everyone is totally obsessed with you and you have friends and family and a life that’s as close to a life as you can have, but you have to leave because Tom messes everything up with his female parts and a silly 1920s accent.
BUT NOW YOU HAVE A DAUGHTER. AND YOU LOVE HER SO MUCH. AND YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT’S GOING TO BE FOR HER BECAUSE SHE’S GOING TO HAVE THE SAME LIFE AS YOU. And you can only hope that she’ll be a beautiful fool, like Tom’s girl, stupid enough to settle for life not having much to offer her.
And Daisy may be beautiful, but she's certainly not a fool.
Three: Holy shit, wait a minute… doesn’t life suck? Is there such a thing as a second chance?
So you’ve got this new life in New York and a BFF from Louisville (Jordan Baker), and yes, Tom is cheating on you, but if he doesn’t answer his phone maybe just once during dinner, you could literally forget about it for a damn second.
And then GUESS WHAT? Your old buddy Nick Carraway is back! A friend, how awesome! HURRAH! And kind of weird, Nick wants you to have a weird one-on-one tea party with him, but it’s like, whatever, Tom is cheating on you anyway and you’re not that interested in Nick but he’s a fun guy and you can just turn him down.
But wait a minute, WHOA, what a crazy coincidence! The guy who was secretly the love of your life, Jay Gatsby, is here too! Like, well, coincidentally! You get to catch up and see his fancy house and stuff. And cry about how he’s such a horrible asshole that he completely abandoned you for years without contacting you and then suddenly shows up and says, “I’m very rich, as promised, I live right across the street from you, I can see your house, let’s get together, here are all my fancy shirts, I’ll throw them to you. I’m so glad Nick is here for some reason, let’s continue to not let him go.”
Plus, as mentioned, life with Tom isn’t particularly great.
So it's like, yeah, perfect, okay. Let's watch some Gatsby.
Four: No. No, there’s no way life isn’t shitty. Life is terrible and so we keep fighting, like boats against the current, perpetually carried back to a guy who’s just as bad.
GUESS WHAT WASN’T A COINCIDENCE? NONE OF IT. All this time, even the people you trusted the most – Nick, Jordan, Gatsby – were manipulating you. There were secret plans and lies and tricks and all these things just to get you to fuck a guy.
And when you think about it, Gatsby is not nice or romantic or kind or fair to little Daisy. Not at all. His expectations are insane. He could leave her and build a life and live how he wanted and travel and make up this story and be rich and throw parties while she lived with an unfaithful husband. And if, after all this, she still wants to participate in the life that being with him could offer her, she must say no. She was never happy, there was never a moment when she loved Tom.
Ridiculous
And when she says plaintively, “I love you now. Isn’t that enough? I can’t do anything about the past,” she is just begging Gatsby to accept her. How utterly tragic. Tom cheats on her, Gatsby expects so much – she was never loved completely, truly, without exception.
Five: Gatsby literally sucks, oh my god
DAISY IS JUST A SYMBOL OF GATSBY’S ABILITY TO CONQUER THE 1920’S SOCIO-ECONOMIC CASTE SYSTEM. If he can “get” Daisy (literally an object), that’s not even enough. He must have HAD DAISY FOREVER. Because then he beat Tom, the symbol of old money.
He is so disgusting, literally. Here are 2 quotes about Gatsby’s “feelings” for Daisy that illustrate how much he sucks.
“It also excited him that many men had already loved Daisy. It increased her value in his eyes.”
Her VALUE. Like she was an OBJECT. Because OTHER MEN weren’t enough, he is THE BEST MAN.
Daisy must have fallen short of the “colossal vitality of his illusion. It had gone beyond her, beyond everything. He had thrown himself into it with creative passion, constantly adding to it, adorning it with every colorful feather that came his way. No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man can dream up in his ghostly heart.”
So he made her into this manic, elfin dream IDEA of a person, and we’re supposed to be mad at her for not living up to it? Nah. Nope. Not going to happen. Gatsby sucks.
Six: It's called the responsible choice, you angry idiots
So AFTER she’s already been pressured by Gatsby to pretend that whole parts of her life didn’t happen, she finds out that Gatsby has been lying to her all along — he’s been hiding the truth from her to protect this psychotic fairy tale fabrication of a totally goddamn made-up story. How! A! Total! Freak! What the hell would you do? If you left your shitty, disgusting husband for what seemed like a better life, but was actually always a lie – and an absolutely creepy one at that. And what if you had a daughter that you OVERWHELMINGLY CLEARLY love and care about, and who loves you too, so much. You would just leave her in the care of this shitty, disgusting, cheating, disgusting husband who couldn’t care less and wouldn’t be above using her as a pawn??? You would leave her even though everything you thought you knew was completely made up???? Even though it was just your dearest loved ones manipulating you all along???
No, damn it, you wouldn’t. Daisy’s choice was to protect her daughter and spend sexy times with a cheater. There is no fucking choice.
She’s amazing and smart and responsible. It can’t have been easy for her to stay with Tom who SUCKS. She tells him to his face that he’s “repulsive.” But it was the adult option.
FROM A HAMMER. She's such a queen.
Seven: Oh, sorry, I forgot THE LAW THAT MARRIED COUPLES ARE EXACTLY EQUAL IN LEVELS OF WORSHIP, you idiots.
Tom sucks. We know that. He’s a racist, cheating bastard, and he’s disgusting, and he beats Myrtle. He does tons of horrible things.
But guess who isn’t automatically responsible for his actions??? Daisy, bitch. She’s ripping him off for his Rise of the Colored Empires-style pseudoscientific racism. She just doesn’t treat people like Tom does. She’s not him. I don’t understand why they’re both put together like it’s her fault. She’s totally trapped.
Eight: Do we know that she knows Gatsby died? Do we really, really, really know?
When Nick calls her at home, she’s gone. Do we really think the guy who picked up the phone is actually going to tell her he called? Would you be upset if a person you trusted and who TOTALLY MANIPULATED you called you after weeks of ignoring you like YOU WERE THE BAD GUY?
Honestly, there’s no real indication that Daisy knew he died, but what did she owe him anyway? He manipulated her, lied to her, treated her like an object, and nearly ruined her life. He turned a terrible existence into total garbage. Whatever, man.
Nine: The Car Thing
She was traumatized. Gatsby orchestrated the whole cover-up. He took the wheel, he drove away, he hid the car. She had no idea the whole thing was going to go horribly wrong. He is the one who made all the decisions after the fact. Of course.
God, that was so long. I am tired. And I apologize. To you for reading something very long that I wrote, and to myself for having to write it.
Surely that should be enough to prove that Daisy Buchanan was a victim of her he’s circumstances and otherwise noble and great and trying her damn best in a world where everyone treats her like the beautiful fool she absolutely isn’t.
Plus, her voice is full of money.
Now go on to your new happy life where you’re completely in love with Daisy Buchanan.
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