Daisy's Voice In The Great Gatsby

The capitalist society of America has been economically motivated since the first settlers came to the continent in search of valuable items. As this country grows, so does the power it gives to money. The American Dream is a perfect example of this. Due to the emphasis the United States places on money, people from all over the world come to the country to get rich. F. Scott Fitzgerald highlights the greed of the American people perfectly in his book The Great Gatsby, particularly in his characterization of Daisy Buchanan. Fitzgerald does this through a simple description of her voice. When Gatsby tells Nick that Daisy’s voice is full of money, Nick thinks “That was it. I’d never understood before. It was full of money---that was the inexhaustible …show more content…
For one thing, he uses parallelism in “that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals’ song of it” as he describes Daisy’s voice (120). Daisy’s voice is compared first to a simple charm, then to a light jingle, and finally to the crashing cymbal. With each description, the harshness and volume increases which accurately portrays Nick’s increasing disgust and realization that Daisy’s voice is full of money and his disgust at her greed and shallowness is demonstrated through Fitzgerald’s parallelism. Fitzgerald uses this disgust to display his own opinion of the economically motivated participants in the American Dream. The increasing harshness also represents the stages of the American Dream. It begins as an idealistic thought in the distance, then as one begins to chase it, the dream increases to an audible item and finally it crashes down upon the poor pursuant like cymbals. These objects also increase in value from the intangible charm to the almost tactile jingle and finally landing on the large, heavy, material cymbals. The mounting physicality of the items that Fitzgerald compares to Daisy’s relates to the ideals that this voice portrays. Daisy’s voice is full of money; she is persuaded only by what she can possess, whether a husband or some shirts. This directly …show more content…
This passage is no exception. Fitzgerald’s major use of symbolism in this selection is the final, seemingly random thought “….High in a white palace the king’s daughter, the golden girl….” (120). Here, Fitzgerald makes use of the symbols contained within colors. He describes Daisy as the golden girl thereby equating her to something valuable. Gold is not only related to value but the colors yellow or gold reference corruption in this novel. Therefore, the author compares Daisy to a corrupted princess through this description. Surrounding this yellow is Fitzgerald’s white palace. White is a universal symbol for purity and innocence. By placing the corrupt yet valuable Princess Daisy in a high, white palace, Fitzgerald effectively demonstrates the illusion surrounding Daisy herself. She cloaks herself in a mask of wholesomeness while inside she is yellow, rotten, and corrupt. Once again, in his description of Daisy, the author also describes the American Dream. This dream is covered in the white purity of a beautiful idea in going to America to find opportunity and wealth. However, beneath this façade, the dream holds its golden yolk of thoughtless, vicious greed. Even the character’s name of Daisy holds the same design. White, beautiful petals surround the true and yellow center. Like Daisy, those who fight for the American Dream will stop at nothing to fulfill their