Quote 1
"Here, deares'." She groped around in a waste-basket she had with her on the bed and pulled out the string of pearls. "Take 'em down-stairs and give 'em back to whoever they belong to. Tell 'em all Daisy's change' her mind. Say: 'Daisy's change' her mine!'" (4.129)
Talk about cold feet. Daisy knows that the fabulously expensive string of pearls that Tom gave her is about to become a chain. When she's drunk, she wants to change her mind and marry the man she truly loves. In the cold and sober (and probably a little hungover) light of day, however, she does what she was born to do: marry the rich guy.
Quote 2
Suddenly, with a strained sound, Daisy bent her head into the shirts and began to cry stormily.
"They're such beautiful shirts," she sobbed, her voice muffled in the think folds. "It makes me sad because I've never seen such – such beautiful shirts before." (5.118-119)
Talk about love. Daisy is so in love with Gatsby that she can't even handle being near his shirts. Or is something else going on here?
Quote 3
"Who wants to go to town?" demanded Daisy insistently. Gatsby's eyes floated toward her. "Ah," she cried, "you look so cool."
Their eyes met, and they stared together at each other, alone in space. With an effort she glanced down at the table.
"You always look so cool," she repeated.
She had told him that she loved him, and Tom Buchanan saw. He was astounded. His mouth opened a little, and he looked at Gatsby, and then back at Daisy as if he had just recognized her as some one he knew a long time ago. (7.79-82)
Rich people—they can't say anything directly. Everything is done through innuendo and suggestion—like Daisy's bizarre confession of love.
Quote 4
"Oh, you want too much!" she cried to Gatsby. "I love you now – isn't that enough? I can't help what's past." She began to sob helplessly. "I did love him once – but I loved you too." (7.261)
Life doesn't come with take-backs or do-overs, and for all that Daisy seems a little dim, she gets it—and Gatsby doesn't. Daisy's never going to be that golden-white girl again.
Quote 5
"It'll show you how I've gotten to feel about – things. Well, she was less than an hour old and Tom was God knows where. I woke up out of the ether with an utterly abandoned feeling, and asked the nurse right away if it was a boy or a girl. She told me it was a girl, and so I turned my head away and wept. 'All right,' I said, 'I'm glad it's a girl. And I hope she'll be a fool—that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.'" (1.116-118)
Daisy thinks that the best a girl can do is to be dumb enough not to realize how awful her life is. Awesome. No wonder she cries.
Quote 6
Before I could answer her eyes fastened with an awed expression on her little finger.
"Look!" she complained. "I hurt it."
We all looked – the knuckle was black and blue.
"You did it, Tom," she said accusingly. "I know you didn't mean to, but you did do it. That's what I get for marrying a brute of a man, a great, big, hulking physical specimen of a– "
"I hate that word hulking," objected Tom crossly, "even in kidding."
"Hulking," insisted Daisy. (1.67-72)
That poor bruised little finger is like a symbol of Tom and Daisy's marriage: he hurts it unintentionally, and Daisy just cannot stop talking about it. You get the feeling that Fitzgerald kind of wants her to stop whining already.
Quote 7
"It'll show you how I've gotten to feel about – things. Well, she was less than an hour old and Tom was God knows where. I woke up out of the ether with an utterly abandoned feeling, and asked the nurse right away if it was a boy or a girl. She told me it was a girl, and so I turned my head away and wept. 'All right,' I said, 'I'm glad it's a girl. And I hope she'll be a fool – that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.' "(1.118)
Daisy pretends that she's happy she's had a girl, but she's not. Girls of any class seem to be the losers in this world (thanks, 1920s!), and Daisy, as you could imagine, isn't psyched about that.
Quote 8
"It'll show you how I've gotten to feel about – things. Well, she was less than an hour old and Tom was God knows where. I woke up out of the ether with an utterly abandoned feeling, and asked the nurse right away if it was a boy or a girl. She told me it was a girl, and so I turned my head away and wept. 'All right,' I said, 'I'm glad it's a girl. And I hope she'll be a fool – that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.'" (1.116-118)
Daisy gives birth to her child alone—the nurse is there, but her husband is nowhere to be found. Apparently, he's not even pacing the hall with a cigar, the way dads were supposed to back in the 1920s. And that poor little girl, born alone into a lonely world. It's enough to make us reach for the tissues.
Quote 9
"Oh, you want too much!" she cried to Gatsby. "I love you now – isn't that enough? I can't help what's past." She began to sob helplessly. "I did love him once – but I loved you too." Gatsby's eyes opened and closed.
"You loved me TOO?" he repeated. (7.264-266)
Gatsby seems more upset by this confession than by the fact that Daisy's actually married to someone else. Marriage doesn't mean much of anything; it's just a dying social system. The feeling is what matters.
Quote 10
"What'll we do with ourselves this afternoon?" cried Daisy, "and the day after that, and the next thirty years?"
"Don't be morbid," Jordan said. "Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall." (7.74-75)
Daisy sees life as an unending round of boredom that eventually ends in death; Jordan sees it as a constant cycle of renewal. Too bad they're both miserable.