Desire and The Great Gatsby
Tom and Daisy
Tom and Daisy are the only married couple of the four relationships I chose to cover. After Gatsby leaves with the army, Daisy eventually gives up on him coming back. She meets Tom and marries him, and she eventually has his child. All through their marriage she discovers he is having affairs with other women. The affair at the time this book is written is with Myrtle. Daisy, during the course of the book, starts an affair with Gatsby upon meeting him again. When Tom’s relationships begin to fall apart (Myrtle is found out by her husband to be having an affair and her husband decides they are going to leave the area, and Daisy is having an affair herself), he starts a fight with Gatsby. During this fight, Daisy says she may have loved Tom during some of the time they were married, and Tom says he has loved Daisy the full time, even when he was having affairs. In the end, they unite after Myrtle’s death, allow Gatsby to die to cover up their tracks, and they leave the area. -EB
This quote comes years after the main events of the book. Nick meets Tom on the street, and Tom tries to come up with excuses for causing Gatsby’s death. Nick sees Tom and Daisy for what they truly are after this conversation. -EB
“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made…”
Fitzgerald, page 179
Intrinsic or Extrinsic?
During the time the book occurs, neither Daisy or Tom loved each other intrinsically. Daisy is tired and angry at Tom for the affairs he has been having and only too happy to have an affair with Gatsby, and Tom is uninterested in Daisy to the point that he has affairs. Both gain status and wealth from each other, and this plus the scandal it would be were they to divorce keeps the two together. By the end, they are bound together by the lie that kills Gatsby. -EB