A product of The Times: A microcosm of the flamboyance of the Jazz Age

椰芋嘘

Daisy's personality does not exist in isolation but is a concentrated manifestation of the social features of the "Jazz Age". In the 1920s in the United States, economic prosperity brought about an abundance of material wealth, but it also gave rise to the prevalence of hedonism and money worship. Traditional moral concepts gradually collapsed, and the "American Dream" became a synonym for material pursuit. Daisy, as a representative of the old nobility in the East Egg Region, her values precisely reflect the characteristics of this era - regarding wealth and status as the ultimate goals of life and emotions and morality as dispensable accessories.
Her indifference and selfishness are essentially the result of the privileged class gradually losing their human warmth in their long-term comfortable life. Her obsession with material possessions was a direct manifestation of the materialistic society at that time. Her passivity and confusion are the inevitable outcome of women's inability to control their own destinies in a patriarchal society and an era of extravagance. By shaping the image of Daisy, Fitzgerald not only demonstrated the complexity of individual character but also made a profound criticism of the extravagance and emptiness of the entire Jazz age. Gatsby's tragedy is not only a tragedy of love, but also a tragedy of being destroyed by the materialistic values represented by Daisy. And Daisy herself is not the winner of this tragedy. Eventually, she will continue to "wander around" in endless comfort and emptiness, becoming a victim of the superficiality of The Times.