Daisy Fay Buchanan

In F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, there are many characters that work together to make the storyline progress. One important character, aside from Gatsby himself, would be Daisy Buchanan, nee Fay, the love interest of both Tom and Gatsby and the cousin of Nick Carraway.

Daisy, who grew up as a spoiled young girl who had her heart's content, finds herself married to Tom Buchanan and living in East Egg with him and their daughter. Though she is 'happily' married, her heart still lingers on old feelings not forgotten for Mr. Jay Gatsby. To fully understand the character of Daisy, readers must look at the roles she has played and continues to play in the lives of those around her.

It is revealed in flashbacks that Daisy was the first real love of Jay Gatsby. This makes her a catalyst capable of manipulating his feelings, as he has never gotten over her. When Gatsby comes back into the picture, Daisy resumes her relationship with him almost automatically, despite being married. This paints her as an untrustworthy woman, though one can't help but admire her willingness to follow her heart.

To Tom, Daisy is loving wife extraordinaire, the one who takes care of his child, 'loves' him unconditionally, and helps run his estate while he's off having an affair with Myrtle. Though Tom has this 'perfect' image of his loving wife, she is really destroying him and Gatsby at once. By cheating with Gatsby, Daisy is ruining a perfectly good marriage with Tom (the fact that he is cheating being taken off the table). As for Gatsby, Daisy is further slaughtering his heart by running around with him in secret but not really being able to stand up for their 'love' in front of anyone.

In short, Daisy likes to create trouble for herself and mar the lives of those around her little by little. "They were careless people, Tom and Daisy - they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made..." is probably the most important quote related to Daisy as it paints another side of her character. She is finally shown in full light; though she comes across as a lovely, pure young woman and wife and mother, her interior motives entail creating havoc at the expense of others, though I suppose this is what keeps Tom interested in her. Perhaps it's a sick little game of cat and mouse, and Daisy is the cat destroying the world in her path.