Driving Miss Daisy Tandy

Daisy is a vain lady. She marries Tom for money and status, and turns her back on true love and happiness, which is represented by Gatsby. Her American Dream is to enjoy a luxurious and comfortable life given to her by, hopefully a man who truly loves her, and whom she also loves. The corruption of her human values begins when she decides not to wait anymore for Gatsby, her real love, but to take the opportunity that Tom Buchanan offers, which are money and status. Her choices reveal her vain and superficial nature hidden beneath her beautiful and innocent look. When Gatsby returns with wealth and status in order

Through the course of the novel, Daisy handles her husband?s affair very calmly. Even when Tom?s mistress telephones during dinner Daisy exclaims, ?it couldn?t be helped,? (20). Although she must obviously be hurting deeply on the inside, Daisy displays no physical signs of distress over her husband?s affair. This makes her appear stronger than she really is.

Despite being a woman, she is sexist even towards her daughter. In the beginning, Daisy expresses her hopes for her daughter, “I hope she’ll be a fool-that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool” (Fitzgerald 17). Women in the 1920’s gained more opportunity and freedom. Daisy’s rejection of these ideas demonstrates her resistance to conform to the society which explains her old-fashioned reasoning. Moreover, this reflects Daisy’s perspective that a girl’s intelligence should not be valued more than her appearance.

Daisy is in love with money, ease, and material luxury, all things a rich Southern Belle grows up with.  After her marriage to Tom, she is whisked away to the east, the symbol of 'old money' and corruption of America.  Here she becomes more comfortable in she and her husband's abundant assets and allows the corruption of the east to take her over- she becomes reckless and even more materialistic.  She treats her own daughter as nothing more than an object to show off and treats Gatsby, the man who dedicated his life to seeking her out, as if he had never existed.  The combination of the Southern Belle stereotype along with that of the corrupt Rich Easterner creates the perfect portrait of Daisy Buchanan.

Daisy is one of the socially eccentric characters who is most responsible for Gatsby's death even though she did not pull the trigger largely because of her carelessness with the people around her. There are many points in

Daisy, like her husband, is a girl of material and class at heart, and Gatsby being her escape from a hierarchist world. Daisy has just grown up knowing wealth, so in her greedy pursuit of happiness and the “American Dream” Myrtle Wilson died, Gatsby's heart and life were compromised, without claiming responsibility on her part. Daisy was “by far the most popular of all the young girls in Louisville...” (116) Jordan says, describing early affections between Daisy and Gatsby. She goes on to say, “...all day long the telephone rang in her house and excited young officers from Camp Taylor demanded the privilege of monopolizing her that night.” (116) . Daisy was a fancied girl who has Gatsby tied around her finger, Jordan explains that he was looking at Daisy “...in a way that every young girl wants to be looked at some time...” (117). Daisy, abusing Gatsby’s love for her uses it to create security and protection, greedily and selfishly allowing him to take the fault. While Daisy’s beautiful, alluring traits turn her into an innocent, naive flower, she plays the ultimate villain.

Her actions are viewed as foolish, creating the stigma around women, and though Daisy does not see herself as a fool, surprisingly she expresses that “the best thing a girl can be in this world [is] a beautiful little fool (Fitzgerald, pg 17).” Yet, Daisy is not a fool; she is merely a victim of her environment which is influenced by gender, money, and status. This leads to Daisy having no power or control over her own life and feeling as though women can only be “beautiful fools” as stated earlier.

Essentially, Daisy is a person who hides in her money and has affection for someone solely based upon their outer image and wealth, aspects important to the dreams of Gatsby and Daisy. In the scene where Daisy observes the movie star and the director at one

Miss Daisy does not adapt well to change and throughout the novel she is forced to face several changes in her life, such as not being able to drive herself. Although she eventually accepts the fact that she must have a personal driver to take her places, she is still very set in her ways and will only accept help from her driver, Hoke, who develops a

Critics of this writing think that James created a character that makes the reader think about whether she is really innocent or not. Carol Ohmann shows that James displays Daisy this way on purpose so that we as the readers can argue whether Daisy is really innocent and just naïve. In “Daisy Miller: A Study of Changing Intentions,” Ohmann writes,

Ageism was introduced as a signifigant social issue almost 50 years ago (Levy, Macdonald 2016). The movie starts out by Mrs. Daisy wrecking her car into a neighbor’s yard. After the wreck, her son did not want her to drive anymore, depicting that she was getting up in age or that she was too old to continue driving. Ageism refers to negative stereotypes about old age (Hooyman, Kawamoto, Kiyak 2016.pg2). Her son, Boolie, then tried to explain to his mother that the insurance company would make it an issue before they paid for damages and cover the cost of her vehicle. Mrs. Daisy, whom is stuck in her ways, does not want to let any of her independence decline. This scene relates to the

Daisy on the other hand plays dumb. She uses vulnerability and innocence as a mask. She acknowledges what she's doing and is focused on keeping her reputation clean. She is bubbly and giggly and is married to Tom. Tom and her were once in love for a short while until Daisy had her child and it was first revealed that Tom was cheating. Daisy was playing the fool, she also knew that Tom “had some women in New York”(20). She was not fighting back in order to preserve her marriage for her daughter as well as her reputation. Daisy is onto something though, she knows that “a fool- that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool”(17). She knows that by her playing the fool she can get out of and get away

Secondly, Daisy is another example of an individual of the novel who appears to be things she really is not. Scott Fitzgerald’s illusions of the appearance of Daisy are meant to affect the events in the novel. Daisy is introduced as a pure hearted, guiltless and lovable character. “The other girl, Daisy, made an attempt to rise — she leaned slightly forward with a conscientious expression — then she laughed, an absurd,

As Daisy becomes older, society pressures her to think a certain way. Eventually the pressure to become perfect makes her fickle and uncaring for everything but money and status. When Daisy and Gatsby reunite, it is awkward up until he shows her everything he owns now. When Gatsby shows her his expensive English shirts, Daisy begins to cry. She

The dynamic nature of Miss Daisy 's character only truly shows itself after the case of the “stolen” salmon can has been solved. At this point in the film, she has grown suspicious of her driver to the point of being