A Beautiful Little Fool: The Great Gatsby from Daisy's Perspective

‘A Beautiful Little Fool’

Authors Note: This was a brief imaginative writing task I attempted some months ago now portraying Chapter Seven in Fitzgerald's 'The Great Gatsby' from the perspective of Daisy Buchanan. 

The day was heavy with heat. It rolled over New York City in a sullen, brooding manner like some Byronic hero, girls and men fainting at every street corner. Usually I adored the city for its glamorous bustling crowd and all the delightful locations for a cocktail or two. More often than not I would take the automobile into town with some girlfriends, Jordan or someone, to escape that brute of a man, my darling husband Tom. We would cruise the streets like starlets, dressed to the nines, or go shopping in some marvellous department store. But today even the Grand Plaza Hotel cannot pique my interest in quite the same way. I would rather bathe naked in a bath of ice instead of cope with one more second of this day. I said as much to the room but no one paid any attention.

I glared at my reflection in the ornate mirror that hung above the mantelpiece, furrowing my brows. I recall my mother telling me back in Louisville never to do that but sometimes seeing my own face do something that I required of it was enough to prove my existence. I reached for my comb, to fix up my hair, the one with the initials JG engraved in the handle and the beautiful art deco motifs that wound all around it, like choking vines. The solid gold glinted yellow in the hot sunlight that streamed through the open windows. Perhaps using it will be the only way to get those men out of their obnoxious hot heads and notice me again for once.

Jordan was the only person who glanced in my direction as she smarmed around the room in her jaunty way opening the windows and admiring the fashionable suite we had procured.

“It’s a swell suite,”

She commentated huskily and all three men laughed jovially at her, even Jay smiled briefly. Jordan had that way with people. It's not irregular that I wish I were as charming as she, although I do think perhaps the men are scared of her. She dances carefree of the rigid grasp of any man, nor the burden of any children.

I feel like maybe, this is all my fault, if only my dear Jay Gatsby had been from a well-do-to family in New York, or even from my little Louisville. Why, if we had met at a society ball, or through family before the war then I would have been engaged to marry him, never having to get married to that awful husband of mine. I would never had been a mother, never had to cope with the moving around the country, never had...It is awfully stuffy in here, isn’t it quite? I ask someone to open another window, but apparently they are all open already.

“Well we’d better telephone for an axe-” I said only half joking.

Tom said in an irritated tone that we should all just try and forget about the heat.

“You’ll make it ten times worse by crabbing about it.” He complained at me unrolling the whiskey bottle from the towel that we had hidden it in from the Hotelier. Jay moved to my side at and stared hard at my husband.

“Why not let her alone, old sport, you’re the one who wanted to come to town.”

“That’s a great expression of yours, isn’t it?” Tom probed.

“What is?” retorted Jay.

“All this “old sport” business. Where do you pick it up?”

I thought it was awfully modern and nouveau riche, to tell the truth, but I have a feeling that Tom was asking about Jay’s Oxford days. A deep red anger sparked in Jay’s eyes. I placed the comb on the mantelpiece among the burnt out candles ends and turn to face my husband.

“Now you see here, Tom. If you’re going to make personal remarks I won’t stay for a minute.”

Glancing at our smuggled alcohol bottle I instructed Tom to call up for some ice. He made his way over to the telephone receiver and suddenly a great burst of strings leapt up the stairs from the ballroom, the harsh chords of the Wedding March. I thought back to my wedding four years ago, June 1918 in Louisville. Jordan echoed my thoughts with a dramatic fall on the settee and an exclamation.

“Imagine marrying anybody in this heat!”

The music changed to that exciting jazz dance music, and I glared down at my hot feet encased in their little yellow shoes.

“We’re getting old. If we were young we’d rise and dance.”

But nobody danced with me, not even my own feet. The men and Jordan continued discussing some chap who had come to my wedding but I couldn’t stop thinking about what my life would had been like if I were still young, or if I had never married Tom.

The voices in the room were rising; a tempest of emotions caught my faint dreams in their vast winds and tore them to shreds. Tom was glaring at Gatsby, a vein pulsing angrily on his temple.

“What kind of row are you trying to cause in my house anyhow?”

Jay glared at him. I saw Jordan and Nick both looking at me, somehow waiting for me to make the decision: my husband or my lover, Tom Buchanan or Jay Gatsby.

“He isn’t causing a row. You’re causing a row.” I said as indignantly as I could to my husband. “Please have a little self control.”

Tom stared at me his jaw slack with shock at my voice rising in his direction.

“Self-control?” He spat incredulously. “I suppose the latest thing is to sit back and let Mr Nobody From Nowhere make love to your wife-”

He continued ranting, but all I could hear was white noise. I collapsed back down onto the chair, folding into myself. How could I do that? Jordan stroked the back of my pale white hand gently and whispered, “Well done old girl.” The room had gone icy even in the scorching sunlight. Gatsby, in his sickly pink suit moved towards my husband.

“I’ve got something to tell you old sport-“

I jumped up and placed myself between the two impassioned men.

“Please don’t! Please let’s all go home. Why don’t we all go home?” I said fruitlessly.

“I want to know what Mr Gatsby has to tell me.” Tom choked out.

Gatsby smiled sardonically and started slowly,

“Your wife doesn’t love you. She’s never loved you. She loves me.” He finished triumphantly, like I was some prize marrow.

“You must be crazy-” But he said it with resignation, like he already knew the truth. Gatsby continued like a madman, seeing his chance.

“She never loved you, do you hear? She only married you because I was poor and she was tired of waiting for me. It was a terrible mistake, but in her heart she never loved any one except me!”

I once adored how awfully romantic Jay was; he built a palace of wealth for me made out of all the green bills in New York City. I was the princess at the end of his long grand quest; why, I was the very holy grail of ambition, but it is only now, amongst all this chaos and heartache that I realise how naïve I had been, falling head over heels for that handsome penniless white-suited soldier boy in the Great War. This new Jay Gatsby, the enigmatic stranger who was the subject of many a New York rumour, was not the man I fell for. As Jordan said last night, this man was a narcissistic fraud. Oh, haven’t I been a fool. I suppose that’s all a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.