Jordan reveals Daisy's past in Chapter 4 to Nick. As Jordan's tells it, she first met Daisy in 1917 in Louisville, Kentucky. A year later, Daisy meets a young soldier:
Wild rumors were circulating about her — how her mother had found her packing her bag one winter night to go to New York and say good-by to a soldier who was going overseas. She was effectually prevented, but she wasn’t on speaking terms with her family for several weeks. After that she didn’t play around with the soldiers any more, but only with a few flat-footed, short-sighted young men in town, who couldn’t get into the army at all.
We later find out that this young soldier is Gatsby, and it seems that after he left for the war, Daisy did not want to be with any other guy, so she went out with "a few flat-footed, short-sighted young men in town" who did not inspire her but who would at least show her a good time.
A year later, Daisy is herself again, and that is when she meets and marries Tom Buchanan "with more pomp and circumstance than Louisville ever knew before." This comes after the Armistice, or the end of World War I, but Daisy has not heard from Gatsby until the day before her wedding, when she is found by Jordan, "lying on her bed as lovely as the June night in her flowered dress — and as drunk as a monkey. She had a bottle of Sauterne in one hand and a letter in the other." The letter is presumably from Gatsby, perhaps telling her that he has survived the war and wants to marry her. However, because of Daisy's position in high society, she cannot cancel her wedding, so Jordan and a maid put Daisy in the bathtub, where the letter disintegrates, and sober her up. The next morning, she marries Tom Buchanan.
No comments:
Post a Comment