I’ve always loved Daisy Buchanan, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s most well-known female character. As a teenager reading The Great Gatsby for the first time, I rooted for the forbidden pairing of Gatsby and Daisy, or Gatisy, as a true “shipper” would call them. Daisy’s charisma, confidence, and beauty captivated me and, like Gatsby, I easily forgave her for her sins. Rereading the novel as an adult, my previous fondness for Daisy returned, along with a renewed appreciation for the complexity of her character.
After examining some of the on-line commentary about The Great Gatsby, I discovered that many critics do not share my opinion and condemn Daisy for her selfish actions and shallow heart. This criticism perpetuates the belief that Daisy represents the upper class wastefulness Thorstein Veblen railed against in his seminal work The Theory of the Leisure Class . As more students look to The Great Gatsby to help them understand white society and culture in the first few decades of the twentieth century, it is imperative that scholars reassess their analysis of Daisy Buchanan to avoid turning her into a stereotype and to develop a more nuanced understanding of her.
The name Fitzgerald chose for his female lead provides strong insights into his characterization of her. Daisies are simple, beautiful flowers that have yellow centers surrounded by white petals. The color white traditionally symbolizes innocence and purity. It is a color frequently associated with Daisy, who is wearing a white dress and driving a white car when she meets Gatsby . Although the color yellow can represent several different things, in the novel it symbolizes destruction and corruption, as best evidenced by Gatsby’s yellow car, which Daisy is driving when she hits and kills Myrtle Wilson . Fitzgerald’s heavy-handed symbolism makes it clear that Daisy’s external charms cover an internal immorality. While a superficial analysis of Daisy often ends with that metaphor, a deeper exploration reveals her admirable self-awareness, sharp survival instincts, and ability to make calculated decisions.
Daisy is not a passive, idle, or mindless consumer of luxury goods and men’s hearts. Instead, she possesses a high degree of social intelligence and understands the consequences of her words and actions. Daisy tends to her reputation with care and does not put herself in situations that will undermine it. By refusing to drink alcohol and disapproving of Gatsby’s wild weekend parties, she demonstrates her desire to control her social situations and her unwillingness to follow the crowd when their whims do not suit her agenda .
Daisy also possesses a strong instinct for survival and an ability to thrive in difficult situations. When Daisy must chose between her husband, Tom, and Gatsby, a choice she never intended to have to make, Tom successfully introduces doubts in her mind about the legitimacy of Gatsby’s wealth. During the same conversation, as Gatsby implores Daisy to tell Tom that she never loved him, she realizes that Gatsby only loves the idealized image of her that he constructed in his mind. Understanding that a relationship with Gatsby would be impossible for personal, economic, and social reasons, Daisy rejects him . I interpret Daisy’s decision to turn her back on Gatsby and stay with her husband not as a passive bending to her husband’s will, but as a calculated decision designed to protect her personal freedom, economic well-being, and social position. When Daisy kills Myrtle Wilson, she and Tom close ranks and flee New York, letting Gatsby take the fall for her crime . This decision, while heartless, is the most practical, self-preserving decision Daisy could have made given the circumstances.
Is Daisy a shrewd manipulator who measures every action against the effect it will have on her pocketbook and reputation? Of course. Does that diminish her appeal? Not a bit! Alternating between charming and heartfelt one moment and superficial and heartless the next, Daisy possesses a rich complexity that makes her as alive and relevant today as she was when the novel was published in 1925. Indeed, it is unsurprising that director Baz Luhrmann is remaking The Great Gatsby for a modern audience. If the popularity of shows such as CBS’s The Good Wife, Showtime’s Nurse Jackie, and ABC Family’s Pretty Little Liars are any indication, there is a market for female protagonists with strong personalities, questionable morality, and personal agency.
 Thorstein Veblen, “The Theory of the Leisure Class,” in The American Intellectual Tradition, eds. David A. Hollinger and Charles Capper (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 137.
 F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (New York, NY: Scribner, 1925), 79.
 Ibid., 147.
 Ibid., 82.
 Ibid., 142.
 Ibid., 152.