American Studies

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May 1, 2004

The Great Gatsby Creative Analysis

Daisy

This is a painting of Daisy by Jessica Gadra.

In the book, Daisy is portrayed as the cousin of

Nick Carraway and the lover of Jay Gatsby. As a

rich, young and beautiful woman in Louisville

before World War 1, Daisy was very popular

among military officers, one of whom included

Gatsby. Gatsby lied to Daisy about his wealthy

family background and won her love for him before

he had to leave to fight in the war. She promised

him that she would wait for him, but “something

within her was crying for a decision. She wanted

her life shaped now, immediately—and the decision must be made by some force –of love, of

money, of unquestionable practicality—that was close at hand” (159). As a result, she

married Tom Buchanan who promised her a wealthy life with a string of pearls (81).

To Gatsby, Daisy seems to be perfect. But this painting shows the “real” woman.

The clothes and jewelry depict her wealth and are a good illustration of Daisy’s materialism,

as evident when Gatsby describes that “her voice is full of money” (127). Her black hair in

this picture represents her materialistic behavior and loss of identity. Daisy is a blonde in the

book, but she has black hair in this painting. The picture implies that she is not being herself

anymore, for the color of her hair doesn’t represent who she is. Her love of money and

materialistic things has blinded her and caused her to go against her morals, coldheartedly

“vanishing into her rich house, her rich, full life, leaving Gatsby—nothing” (157). Her love

of money also causes her to make decisions that result in actions people don’t normally do.

An example would be to forget about the people who take care, love and treat you well.

Although Daisy appears to be dressy, fashionable and wealthy, this painting suggests

that she is not happy. The painting depicts her hand on her heart, which implies that she is

hoping for something.

We can see a daisy (flower) in the background of the picture inside in a circle. The

daisy is trapped in the circle. This is another good illustration of Daisy because in the book,

she is trapped between choosing to live a wealthy life with Tom or one with Gatsby, as

evident when she is forced to say whom she loves in chapter seven. The circle trapping the

daisy symbolizes Tom, whereas the smoke symbolizes Gatsby and freedom because some of

the smoke is drawn in a way that it seems to be leaving the circle. Daisy is not happy in this

illustration because it seems that she doesn’t want to be trapped, but at the same time she

cannot leave the circle trapping her.

In the book, this is exactly what happens to Daisy. Daisy is not happy and content

with Tom, but “she doesn’t believe in divorce” (38). She wants to be unchained and live the

life that she wants to, but her daughter with Tom anchors her down. The fact that her

daughter is given a name serves the purpose of showing us that Daisy would still be trapped,

even if she chooses to leave. It is not Tom that traps her, but her daughter. With a daughter

comes responsibility, an “invasion of privacy” and a loss of freedom. We can tell that Daisy

is trapped because if she chooses to leave Tom, her decision will not only influence her and

Tom, but the innocent child who has done nothing wrong to deserve her mother abandoning

her. She has placed herself in a situation where she cannot live happily with her family like

most women do, and she cannot let go of everything and pursue the life she wants. This is

the result of “loving Tom once, but loving Gatsby, too” (140). Daisy asks for too much and

in return she ends up with nothing. She is not able to find a way out of her dilemma.

Everything Else

The artist created this painting, Everything Else, as a

book cover for her American Literature class. This painting

is a combination of a man sleeping, a pair of legs, a married

couple, a pair of eyes with the left one painted as green at the

bottom, the face of a woman, cars and a pair of eyes. These

are good illustrations of the book because they capture the

relationship between Gatsby and Daisy, as well as her

importance and influence to him.

Daisy is portrayed to be extremely important to

Gatsby in the book. This painting shows the audience how obsessed he is with Daisy with

supporting quotes from the book: “Well, there I was, way off my ambitions, getting deeper in

love every minute” (157). It is a good illustration of Gatsby’s mindset because this painting

shows the important events that happen to Gatsby in the book—the memories he shared with

Daisy, his hopes and dreams of Daisy and the car which symbolizes Gatsby’s death. As you

might have noticed, almost everything in this painting is related to Daisy. This shows how

important she is to Gatsby. Gatsby’s mindset is filled up with images, hopes and memories

of her.

The color contrast in this painting also helps us to make further connections with the

painting and the novel. The color grey implies something that lacks life, spirit and hope. The

artist chooses to color the car, the couple, the eyes and the face of a woman in grey. This ties

in with the novel because to Gatsby, these are things that do not exist anymore or will never

exist. Most of the things painted in grey symbolize Gatsby’s memories and his past. He

claims: “why of course you can repeat the past” (116), but yet this painting shows his past to

be nonexistent because we know that Gatsby’s “claim” is unrealistic. It is impossible to

repeat the past. The reason why the green eye is painted in grey as well, is because just like

Gatsby’s claim of repeating the past, the chances of him being able to “fix everything just as

the way it was before” (117) with Daisy and make his dream come true is extremely small for

she is already married with a daughter.

The married couple is painted in white. Usually white is used to symbolize purity,

“goodness” and innocence. This also captures Gatsby’s mindset because to him, Daisy is

perfect as evident when he tells Nick that “she was the first ‘nice’ girl he had ever known”

(155). Daisy is not simply “nice”, because of her charm, wealth and popularity in Louisville,

but knowing that many men had already fallen in love with Daisy before, her value increases

in Gatsby’s eyes (156), thus making her appear even more desirable to him (155). Although

Daisy possesses bad qualities such as being materialistic and shallow, the woman in the white

wedding dress shows that in Gatsby’s mindset, she’s always perfect.

The pair of eyes is not as significant and important to Gatsby in comparison to the

memories and hopes for Daisy. The eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg are an important symbol in

this book, symbolizing the eyes of God that look over the people through a pair of yellow

spectacles. They are used by Fitzgerald to imply that people in the twenties were blinded by

the thought of money, which he suggests is more important to Americans than God. The

purpose of the eyes in this painting has nothing to do with Gatsby’s perceptions of God and

money. They only show that God has witnessed everything that has happened to Gatsby in

the book. God has been the headlights of a car, not guiding and controlling, but simply

showing him the paths that he chooses to take.

The Great Gatsby

This painting by Craig Orback is similar to the

book cover of the novel in terms of the use of the “green

light”. However, the man (Gatsby) is portrayed with a

cigarette and he stares at the faint face of a woman

(Daisy) in the sky. We can think of Gatsby as smoking

to hallucinate, relax and escape from reality as most

smokers do. Daisy is formed as a result of smoking (the

smoke). This gives us an idea of what Daisy really is in

the book. To Gatsby, she is like the smoke coming out

of the cigarette, she is a “gas”. She only exists for a

split second and then she vanishes, as evident when they

were in love before and then they separated. Gatsby

could only keep his dream of being with Daisy alive by

constantly believing that his dream foretells his future with her and by talking himself into

living in his own fantasy world. The picture above suggests that similar to any other smokers,

this man is addicted to smoking (nicotine).

In the book, Gatsby is also “addicted” to continue believing that his dream would

come true one day. By portraying Daisy to be potentially harmful to Gatsby’s mental health

in the same way that nicotine is detrimental to one’s heath. It is true that Daisy brought back

many memories and happy moments that she shared with Gatsby before, but she also stopped

the time from ticking for Gatsby. This is because he refused to stop dreaming and living in

his unrealistic world. Similar to cigarettes that damage the physical health of the body, Daisy

damages the mental health of Gatsby.

A Seated Man and a Dancing Couple

A Seated Man and a Dancing Couple by Salvador Dali shows a man sitting alone in a

room while a couple dances/passes by the room. In the book, Gatsby is portrayed as a

wealthy thirty year old man, who hosts parties at his mansion every week. He is like a

celebrity. People gossip about him and his mysterious background. He fell deeply in love

with Daisy when he met her before he had to go fight in World War I in 1917. She was his

motivation to become successful and the reason for his parties, change of name, becoming

extremely rich and buying a house in West Egg, as evident when Jordan says that “Gatsby

bought that house so that Daisy would be just across the bay”(83). Although Daisy promised

Gatsby that she would wait for him, she married Tom

two years later when Gatsby was studying in Oxford.

When Gatsby found out about Daisy’s marriage, he

was determined to win Daisy back. This is when we

see the naïve and romantic side of Gatsby. He

continuously waits for Daisy, desperately hoping that

one day she will love him again.

This painting shows a couple passing by the

room, as if the man sitting inside is invisible to them;

this suggests that the couple probably doesn’t know

him. This is a good illustration of Gatsby because

these two people are similar to the random people who

attend Gatsby’s weekly parties: “Sometimes they came

and went without having met Gatsby at all, came for the party with a simplicity of heart that

was its own ticket of admission” (45).

Although this man is ignored by the couple and appears to be lonely, he seems to be

indifferent about whether or not this couple pays attention to his existence. He continues to

stare in one direction and he even has a smile on his face. This is similar to how Nick

describes Gatsby on first seeing him. Nick says Gatsby “gave a sudden intimidation that he

was content to be alone” (25). Gatsby is content to be alone because it is the only time where

he can sit back, relax, and let his imagination take him to his fantasy world. He can only be

with Daisy when he is alone.

The color green is used to portray Gatsby’s hope. The green cap on the man suggests

that Gatsby is not alone when he thinks and dreams about Daisy. To Gatsby, Daisy is like the

thing that the man is staring at in the picture. She keeps him entertained, occupied and

prevents him from being alone, even when outsiders pass by without greeting him. To us,

this man seems lonely just as Gatsby gave Nick the impression of being lonely at the

beginning. But the man doesn’t seem to think that he is lonely as suggested by his smile.

Instead, he seems to be sending out a message that he does not want to be disturbed from his

loneliness.

This man does not seem to be bothered by the fact that the people who pass by his

room are a couple, while he is alone and single. This is also a good illustration of Gatsby

because this shows that Gatsby is not only hopeful and patient, but optimistic as evident by

his regular weekly parties and the comment Nick made about him— “He half expected her to

wander into one of his parties” (84).

Clock and Key

Clock and Key, by the artist Jin Wicked, shows

a clock and a key, which suggests that the time is

locked; the time is stopped. This is another good

illustration of The Great Gatsby because in the book,

Gatsby also stopped his time from ticking as evident

when he tells Daisy to “tell him the truth—that you

never loved him—and it’s all wiped out forever” (139).

By telling Daisy to tell Tom that she never loved him,

Gatsby shows that he is unwilling to move on in life.

He wants to continue living life the way it used to be

before he left to fight in the war. He refuses to accept that Daisy did not wait for him and

married another man instead.

The key in this painting is like Daisy in the book. She locks Gatsby into the past.

The only way for the clock to start ticking again is if you unlock it. But in the book, Gatsby

is unable to win Daisy’s love again as evident when Daisy says: “I can’t say I never loved

Tom” (140). As a result, the clock remains locked and Gatsby is not able to move on from

his past memories with Daisy.

The locked clock is a good illustration of Gatsby because when something is locked,

it remains in the same condition that it was in when it was locked. In Gatsby’s situation, he is

locked in the past together with the sweet and bitter memories of Daisy. He remembers the

time when they were in love in Louisville, but he also remembers the time and feeling when

he found out that Daisy had married another man. He told Tom that he tried to “forget

something very sad that had happened to him long ago” (70).

His constant staring at the green light and dreaming about being together with Daisy

once again, is an indication that he is still living in the past, not realizing that it is impossible

to get back together with Daisy anymore. Having to be locked up together with the good

memories (mostly) he shared with Daisy, Gatsby finds it ridiculous and unacceptable for

Daisy to marry any other man except from him ,as shown when he says: “it was a terrible

mistake, but in her heart she never loved anyone except me!” (137). He is locked up in the

time period where they were still in love, which explains why he continuously believes that

he can win Daisy back.

Works Cited

Dali, Salvador. “Painting Galleries #3”. 1 May. 2004

<http://dali.karelia.ru/html/galleries/painting03.htm>.

“Everything Else”. 3 May. 2004 <http://members.tripod.com/sunrazed/everything_else.htm>.

Gadra, Jessica. “Jessica Gadra”. 1 May. 2004

<http://users.adelphia.net/~draga300/various.html>.

Orback, Craig. “The Great Gatsby”. Craig Orback Illustraion. 2 May. 2004

<http://www.craigorback.com/illustrations/gatsby.htm>.

Wicked, Jin. “Clock and Key”. 2 May. 2004. 3 May. 2004

<http://www.jinwicked.com/en/art/paintings/clockandkey.html>.