Daisy's Quote

"I hope she’ll be a fool—that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool"

Daisy speaks these words in Chapter 1 as she describes to Nick and Jordan her hopes for her daughter. Even though it is not directly relevant to the novel’s main ideas, this quote offers a revealing glimpse into Daisy’s character and who she is and what she has become. Daisy is not a fool but is the product of a social environment that, to a great extent, does not value intelligence in women, which makes her seem as a fool. The older generation values obedience and cooperative in females, and the younger generation values thoughtlessness and only seeking pleasure. Daisy’s remark is somewhat cynical. While she refers to the social values of her era, she does not seem to challenge them. She does not stand a chance against her environment so she decides to go with the flow, although in reality, she is no where near a fool. Instead, she describes her own boredom with life and seems to imply that a girl can have more fun if she is beautiful and simplistic through the birth of her daughter, in a way telling her that being a beautiful fool will help her enjoy her life more cause of how men thought of females in that era. Daisy herself often tries to act such a part. She has completely given into the social standard of the ideology of American females in the 1920s in order to avoid issues filled with tension and drama as she continues to love Gatsby like no other.