How Does Daisy Buchanan Symbolize In The Great Gatsby

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“Gatsby, one moment of magical encounter, would blot out those five years of unwavering devotion,” (Fitzgerald 109). Magicians are known for the tricks that they play on the eyes. What often seems like magic, turns out to be just a careful flick of the wrist. In the book The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the idea of magic is compared to several characters in the novel. The magician motif is used among other implements to prove that appearance is not always reality. Jay Gatsby is described as a rich, powerful man, and mysterious man, but all his fortune is made for a simple cause, the love of the beautiful Daisy Fay Buchanan. He is compared to a magician because he gives an appearance of being in a higher class than he really belongs …show more content…
Gatsby's greatness lies in his capacity for illusion. Had he seen Daisy for what she was, he could not have loved her with such single-minded devotion. He tries to recapture Daisy with his magic tricks, and for a time it looks as though he will succeed. But he must fail, because of his inability to separate the magic from the real. Daisy is the trick. Magicians usually have a white cloth over their tricks which explains why Daisy wears a white outfit. Daisy twice leads Gatsby to believe that she loves him, creating the illusion that the two of them will be together only to deceive the audience. Back in 1917 Daisy and Gatsby met for the first time and he falls head over heels in love with her. When he leaves to fight in the war he is under the illusion that Daisy will wait for him, an illusion that is soon broken as she marries Tom. She once again becomes an illusionist when she embarks on an affair with Gatsby, leading him to believe and even the audience believe that she will leave Tom for him, “I never loved him,” (Fitzgerald 132). However, it was only an illusion to deceive the audience when she reveals “I can’t say I never loved Tom,” (Fitzgerald 133). Since there is no real love between Gatsby and Daisy, there is no real truth to Gatsby's vision. Fitzgerald displays what critics have termed an ability to see the face …show more content…
That is exactly what the characters in the novel portray. The Great Gatsby seems worthy of the great title, but once the smoky mist of his illusion, the green light spotlight fades, and the magic dies out, there is nothing left of him that seems great after all. The main love interest Daisy deceived everyone into believing she loved Gatsby, but she managed to out trick him. Even the party guests were all a part of The Great Gatsby illusion. The problem is that false identities do depend essentially on externals, and the result is personal vacuum. Combined with Gatsby's optimistic "faith" that every desire can be turned into reality with the right stage-props, with the right gestures or "productions," there remains the nagging fear, the inevitable panic resulting from the fact that the "enchantment" itself can last only so long as the external appearance remains intact. Given any change in external circumstances; given any sudden eruption of crisis, or intrusion of real emotion, and the entire structure must collapse; the "enchantment" fades away like cheap neon light, and the result is nothing at all. "Enchanted objects," after all, by definition disappear when touched; and this is precisely the measure of Gatsby's success and his
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