On the hottest day of summer, Daisy asks Nick and Gatsby to lunch with her, Tom, and Jordan. When Tom leaves the room, Daisy kisses Gatsby on the lips and declares her love for him, although the moment is quickly interrupted when the nurse brings in Daisy's daughter, Pammy.
“Oh, you want too much!” she cried to Gatsby. “I love you now–isn't that enough? I can't help what's past.” She began to sob helplessly. “I did love him once–but I loved you too.”
Daisy Fay is born in 1899 in Louisville, Kentucky. She grows up friends with Jordan Baker. In October 1917, Daisy and Gatsby meet in Louisville and date for a month, before Gatsby ships out to fight in WWI.
Like Zelda Fitzgerald, Daisy is in love with money, ease, and material luxury. She is capable of affection (she seems genuinely fond of Nick and occasionally seems to love Gatsby sincerely), but not of sustained loyalty or care.
He loves what she represents. He was infatuated with her, her life, her money, social status. Everything he did, the cars, the parties, was in hopes that she would happen upon one of his events and be impressed to be with him. Why does Gatsby insist that Daisy never loved Tom?
Gatsby reveals details of his and Daisy's long ago courtship. He was enthralled by her wealth, her big house, and the idea of men loving her. To be with Daisy, he pretended to be of the same social standing as her. One night, they slept together, and he felt like they were married.
In The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby is obsessed with Daisy Buchanan, he is clinging to the past, desperately trying to relive the romance of his youth. His obsession is demonstrated on multiple occasions throughout the novel.
Daisy openly admits to loving both Tom and Gatsby, and the flashback scene suggests she really did love Gatsby before she married Tom. As we discussed above, it's possible she doesn't leave Tom partially because she's wary of another heartbreak, along with her reluctance to give up her place in society.
Why does Daisy kiss Gatsy while Tom is on the phone in the other room? She is living recklessly and trying to get caught or get back Tom at for having a mistress. What does Gatsby see at Daisy's that he found hard to believe? He sees Pammy, Daisy and Tom's daughter, and realizes he cannot erase the last five years.
The implication here is that Daisy was romantically experienced and certainly no virgin, an implication further supported in the fact that there was no mention of loss of virginity when Gatsby "took her."
The first thing that attracted Gatsby was Daisy's wealth – her house in particular ('there was a ripe mystery about it'). This removes the idea that he was attracted to Daisy in herself. He was – and still is – attracted to the 'money' in her.
Daisy, like her husband, has an affair but, she cheats on Tom with Gatsby. She slowly starts to lose faith in humanity and starts to see the world as a very bad place. She wishes for her daughter to not see the world for what it is.
“Oh, you want too much!” she cried to Gatsby. “I love you now—isn't that enough? I can't help what's past.” She began to sob helplessly. “I did love him once—but I loved you too.”
Gatsby says Daisy never loved Tom and has only ever loved him. Tom protests, but Daisy says it's true. Gatsby's sacrifice appears to have been worth it. Yet when Tom asks her to think about their history together, Daisy admits that she did love Tom in the past, she just loved Gatsby too.
Daisy is unable to confront the reality of her part in Gatsby's passing due to her feelings of guilt and shame; as a result, she is prevented from attending the funeral of Gatsby. In addition, Daisy is still married to Tom, so she may be concerned about what the aftermath of her attendance at Gatsby's funeral will be.
"I did love him once—but I loved you too." Gatsby's eyes opened and closed. Here we finally get a glimpse at Daisy's real feelings—she loved Gatsby, but also Tom, and to her those were equal loves.
The narrative switches back to Nick. Tom realises that it was Gatsby's car that struck and killed Myrtle. Back at Daisy and Tom's home, Gatsby tells Nick that Daisy was driving the car that killed Myrtle but he will take the blame.
What seems odd about this interaction is that despite Gatsby's obvious infatuation with Daisy, she continues to act flirtatiously with Nick.
Daisy cries because she has never seen such beautiful shirts, and their appearance makes her emotional. The scene solidifies her character and her treatment of Gatsby. She is vain and self-serving, only concerned with material goods.
Daisy isn't really talking about—or weeping over—the shirts from England. Her strong emotional reaction comes from the excitement of Gatsby having the proper wealth, and perhaps remorse over the complexity of the situation; he is finally a man she could marry, but she is already wed to Tom.
"Can't repeat the past?" he cried incredulously. "Why of course you can!" He looked around him wildly, as if the past were lurking here in the shadow of his house, just out of reach of his hand. This is probably Gatsby's single most famous quote.
Their love affair makes Gatsby optimistic that Daisy is his true love, but he really only sees and loves an idealized version of her that he has carried for years. In the end, Daisy chooses to stay with her husband even when knowing he had also had an affair.
“You're worth the whole damn bunch put together.” I've always been glad I said that. It was the only compliment I ever gave him, because I disapproved of him from beginning to end.” Nick addresses these words to Gatsby the last time he sees his neighbor alive, in Chapter 8.
Despite Gatsby's “romantic readiness” (2), as narrator Nick Carraway puts it, he subtly shows that his love for Daisy is never genuine. Gatsby, in fact, is never capable of loving her at all; he was born with a life and status too drastically different from hers to ever really connect with her in a true, romantic way.
Soon after the wedding, Daisy became pregnant, and Tom started to have affairs with other women. Jordan tells Nick that Gatsby has asked to be invited to his house at a time when Daisy is also present. Nick kisses Jordan.