MovieChat Forums > The Great Gatsby (1974) Discussion > Did Daisy ever loved Gatsby?

Did Daisy ever loved Gatsby?


Did Daisy ever loved Gatsby?
What do you guys think?

(I never read the book)


"...Oh God! It is unutterable!" - Heathcliff

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[deleted]

yeah i would definitely say she loved him. but the whole thing is you can't recreate the past and he was expecting too much of her

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Yeah Gatsby and Daisy were in love but then he left for the war and Daisy's mother made her marry Tom and then Tom grew on her and she loved Tom and Gatsby came back
and she loved him but still loved tom

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[deleted]

I agree. If you have read the book you can see that Daisy seems to love Gatsby but as she represents the "amoral" aristocrats of the East Egg (and the hollow rich people Fitzgerald liked to make fun of) she is not capable of sustained loyalty. She is more in love with herself, money and material wealth.

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Bingo. I agree. You nailed it.

I think that's why we have the scenes with her daughter, where the child is nothing more than a temporary amusement to her. I think that's why they chose to focus so much on the grandiose nature of the party, the slow shots of the golden cake molds, the sparkle they added to the shine on the silverware, and that scene involving all of the "pretty shirts".

And of course, the end. It's all just a party to Daisy. And it doesn't matter who she's with as long as she gets what she wants.

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I would say more that Daisy loved Gatsby as much as she was able. Her character (in the book and movie) is so completely vapid and self-absorbed; she notices very little outside of herself. Even with Gatsby's death, her sense of grief is completely turned inward, never even truly understanding that Gatsby was DEAD or that others may suffer his loss as well.

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yes she loved Gatsby.

but there were circumstances that came between her love for him.
just read the book people!

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It was like she said in the movie, "I love how much you love me."

I doubt she was in love with him, more with the idea of him.

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I have not read the book either, but I think Daisy once "loved" him. Her love was more of a shallow love though, I suppose because she was a bit of a shallow character. I guess you could call her "love" more of an infatuation.

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She loved the idea of him more. She enjoyed having someone who she once had feelings for being completely head-over-heels in love her. She was incredibly vain and loved knowing that someone loved her more than she loved herself.
She completely disregarded his feelings throughout the book, no one could do that to someone they once felt love towards.

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I would say Daisy loved Gatsby, but I don't think she ever meant to marry him or be in a serious relationship with him. Afterall, he was just a poor soldier, and there were so many other men vying for her attention. When Gatsby left for the war, she moved on. I think she felt a closer connection with him than many other men, but he was just not a logical choice. When he brings her to his mansion, and shows her all of the shirts that he has, she starts crying because he's become so rich and I think she has misgivings about marrying Tom. But once again she becomes fickle, and when Gatsby dies, she easily moves on and goes back to Chicago.

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If you read the book (which I highly recommend) it may be more abundantly clear that Daisy never loved Gatsby. Daisy was a one note character, a woman who was terribly self-involved, self-centered, selfish, and cold as ice. If you doubt it, recall her scene with her daughter, Pammy where she shows the child off to her guests as if the little girl were a pet poodle. Her inability to love her own child in a meaningful way along with her choice to marry a man she didn't love for his money and social standing should make it easier to see that Daisy could never have loved Gatsby. Had Daisy truly loved Gatsby even back in the pre-War days in Louisville, she would have waited for him to return home. Even after falling apart on the eve of her wedding due to a letter from Gatsby, Daisy did not call off her wedding. After the accident even Nick realizes what a cold and shallow person Daisy really was...she let Tom believe that Gatsby was driving the car that killed Myrtle when she was really the driver. And remember she didn't call after Gatsby was killed and didn't so much as send flowers to his funeral.

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I disagree, I think that Daisy loved Gatsby in her own way, her own way being shallow. You're right, Daisy was a completely shallow, self-centered person, but I wouldn't go so far as to call her cold. She was just terribly naiive, but believed herself to be world-weary and wise. She was almost child-like in her feelings and passions. Thus, she never truly loved Gatsby– or loved anything or anyone, for that matter– the way most people do, but loved him the way a sheltered child would love something. So she did love him, but perhaps not for being himself, just for being different from the other boys she used to date before him. I think Daisy could have fallen in love with just about anyone who came to rescue her from the monotony of her life at that stage, and would have fallen out of love with them as quickly as she fell out of love with Gatsby. And Gasby– well, he loved what Daisy represented to him, and in his equally naiive way of thinking, he idealized her in his mind, idolizing her memory and making it possible for him to love her (in his own Gatsby way) through all those years.

"I'm the first pancake."
"What do you mean?"
"She's the one you're supposed to throw out."

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Well said, I think you got both these characters to a T.

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Read the book, definately. It's amazing. You know, I think she did in some facet or another. But I'm not sure she was ever completely in love with him. I haven't seen the whole movie, so I don't know exactly how that plays out, but in the book, after Tom finds out about the two of them, she drifts back to Tom. I think more than anything, she was in love with the excitement of having a secret lover, especially since that lover was an old flame. I think Fitzgerald's characters' relationships were meant to be failures; I get the feeling that he wrote it to get off his chest the frustration that he had with his own relationship with his wife, Zelda. So I guess my answer is yes and no. She did...but not truly. Which I thought was the saddest thing I had ever read. I adored Gatsby, and he was so in love with her. I think his was the only true heart in the entire story.

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I agree with you. But Daisy isn't a representation of Zelda, but of his lover of his younger years, Ginevra, if I'm not mistaken. Ginevra married a rich man. Years later they found each other again, and his rejection of her (showing he was completely over her) was amazing.

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I dont think she loved him.
She might have when she first met him 5 years ago when he was a "poor boy".
But now, with all his wonderful things I think her love for material things and her lavish lifestyle made her believe she loved him.

Thats my opinion.

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