Skip to main content

Does Daisy, in The Great Gatsby, approve of Gatsby's party?

The party in question occurs in chapter 6. Daisy initially displays a mood of conviviality and enthusiasm, as evidenced by her remarks: 



“These things excite me so,” she whispered. 


“I’m looking around. I’m having a marvelous ——”



She presents the same sort of excitement a bit later, after having done the rounds.



“I’ve never met so many celebrities!” Daisy exclaimed. “I liked that man — what was his name? — with the sort of blue nose.”


Gatsby identified him, adding that he was a small producer.


“Well, I liked him anyhow.”



Nick Carraway, however, later states:



I knew that except for the half-hour she’d been alone with Gatsby she wasn’t having a good time.



Nick repeats this sentiment after a while when Daisy passes a comment about a movie star whom she has seen with her producer. She says: 



“I like her,” said Daisy, “I think she’s lovely.”



Nick, contrarily, observes:



But the rest offended her — and inarguably, because it wasn’t a gesture but an emotion. She was appalled by West Egg, this unprecedented “place” that Broadway had begotten...



In a later conversation with Tom, Daisy does speak in Jay's defense when Tom sneeringly says:



“Well, he certainly must have strained himself to get this menagerie together.”




“At least they’re more interesting than the people we know,” she said with an effort.


“You didn’t look so interested.”


“Well, I was.”



Once Daisy and Tom had left, Nick is joined by Jay and the two have the following talk:



“She didn’t like it,” he said immediately.


“Of course she did.”


“She didn’t like it,” he insisted. “She didn’t have a good time.”


He was silent, and I guessed at his unutterable depression.


“I feel far away from her,” he said. “It’s hard to make her understand.”



It is obvious from Jay's response that he sensed that Daisy did not approve of his effort to impress her. He is clearly distressed by her attitude and attempts to explain, unsuccessfully, the reason for her negativity. It is evident that he wants her to be the same girl with whom he had fallen so desperately in love with five years ago. When Nick tells him that one cannot repeat the past, he stubbornly insists that one can, and desperately declares:



“I’m going to fix everything just the way it was before,...”



From the above, one can clearly evince that Daisy, although assuming a duty to protect Jay, did not approve of his grand get-together. All the other characters: Nick, Tom and Jay, most pertinently noticed her displeasure even though she did not articulate as much.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...

Is 'efficate' a word in English?

I routinely hear the word "efficate" being used. For example, "The most powerful way to efficate a change in the system is to participate." I do not find entries for this word in common English dictionaries, but I do not have an unabridged dictionary. I have checked the OED (I'm not sure if it is considered unabridged), and it has no entry for "efficate". It does have an entry for "efficiate", which is used in the same way. Wordnik has an entry for "efficate" with over 1800 hits, thus providing some evidence for the frequency of use. I personally like the word and find the meaning very clear and obvious when others use it. If it's not currently an "officially documented" word, perhaps its continued use will result in it being better documented.