The Great Gatsby Pgs. 74-80

                Pages 74-80 of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby were incredibly critical in that they revealed a significant twist in the plotline of the story and also allowed me to notice a multitude of similarities between the characters of Daisy and Gatsby. As Nick spends the day with Jordan Baker, the true essence of the major conflict of the novel is revealed: Gatsby and Daisy had a relationship long before she married Tom that has left him pining for her in deep, helpless love ever since. As Jordan elaborates on this topic and relays to Nick the details of many past events and developments, I began to gain a better understanding of both Daisy and Gatsby and observe how their characters were united in many complicated aspects.

                The first and most obvious similarity that I noticed between Daisy and Gatsby is that they have both suffered greatly at the hands of loneliness and corrupted love. Gatsby has expressed that he lost all of his family members many years previously and has since traveled many places, refusing to stay anywhere for very long or bothering to establish long-term friendships. In a similar fashion, Tom and Daisy moved to the East, alienating Daisy from all of her family members. While she may have a great deal more friends than Gatsby, Daisy has entrapped herself in a terrible, icy marriage in which she is absolutely miserable; as a result, her own loneliness is unfortunately as great as Gatsby’s. Furthermore, we have now learned that Gatsby has spent five years since his relationship with Daisy in 1917 chained by the crushing misery of a love that seems destined to never be. On the other hand, Daisy may have found love with Tom Buchanan for a time at the beginning of her marriage, but Jordan proves that Tom was never faithful to her- he was seen late at night with another woman just two months after he had married Daisy- and so Daisy has never really been blessed with a long-lasting mutual love, either. In this manner, both Daisy and Gatsby are very similar in that they both feel a gaping emptiness in their lives that has been left by the absence of true love. While Daisy may never have admitted it, I am fairly certain that she is still as engrossed with Gatsby as he is with her, and their relationship may never have ended if Gatsby had not gone off to war. Additionally, Jordan mentioned that the night before Daisy married Tom, Daisy clasped a crumpled letter while insisting that she no longer wanted to marry Tom. Although the letter was destroyed and nobody knows what it contained, I have a strong feeling that the letter was from Gatsby himself, which shows that even the slightest chance that she may still have a future with Gatsby had given Daisy the inspiration to refuse to marry Tom. Due to all of these facts, I have a feeling that a strong connection can be drawn between Daisy and Gatsby in that both have harbored an undying love for one another since their relationship in 1917.

                                          Gatsby searched the newspaper for Daisy's name.

              An even more prominent similarity between Daisy and Gatsby which came to my attention while reading this section of The Great Gatsby was that neither Daisy nor Gatsby have seemed to have the courage to improve the sadness and misery of their lives. For example, despite the fact that Gatsby has loved Daisy helplessly since the time of their first relationship and has gone to great lengths to stay within a close proximity to her, he has never actually taken any actions to meet with Daisy in five years. Jordan remarks that, “Gatsby bought that house so that Daisy would be just across the bay” (Fitzgerald, 78) and, “He says he’s read a Chicago paper for years just on the chance of catching a glimpse of Daisy’s name” (Fitzgerald, 79). Although he is perfectly content to admire from afar, however, Gatsby has never actually gone to any measures to actually confront Daisy or confess his love to her; instead, he has merely hosted elaborate parties every weekend for years on the off-chance that she might casually appear at one of them. Likewise, Daisy has been fully aware of Tom’s infidelity for years and has shed many tears as a result of it, yet she has never had the courage to take their daughter and abandon him. While I understand that Gatsby may be timid to meet Daisy since she is married, and Daisy may be reluctant to leave Tom since doing so would spread word of a scandal marring her reputation and leaving her with little of a future, I wish desperately that Gatsby and Daisy would both realize that they will never be able to attain any happiness for themselves if they don’t fight for it.