Part 2 -- Standford (Botao) Su -- Awaken to Uniqueness and Independence

On the surface, Daisy is a charming, beautiful and graceful girl pursued by numerous men. ✔However, in reality, she is a self-centered, materialistic and conscienceless woman✖. With the aim to maintain her status and materials, she does not mind bearing her husband who cheats on her. ❓❓ She does not have enough sense of security in her life. 

American Dream is the people’s awareness of their uniqueness and personal advantages, especially the ability to be independent. People are likely to be influenced by others’ opinions and their stereotypes to doubt their ability to do something unique😥. If they can believe that most people are different and unique, they will not easily trust others’ words about something difficult.👏

The absence of Daisy’s awareness of uniqueness leads to the loss of her conscience. Her American Dream is to enjoy the true love and abundant materials at the same time. Since she is not aware of her advantages, she is not confident enough to achieve it. Her ideas can be shown by “I hope she is a fool – that’s the best thing a girl can have in the world”. She thinks that all girls cannot be unique and independent. She is also influenced by the stereotype that people from the Old Money cannot connect with people from the New Money, so she forces herself to marry Tom. In other words, she does not believe that she can be independent enough to utilize her uniqueness.😪

Daisy fails to achieve her American Dream, because she is satisfied by a fake, normal and even boring life with only materials. Just like other women from the Old Money, she acquiesces in her ordinary and her husband’s cheating. She is not able to explore and utilize most of her advantages and uniqueness.

In order to fulfill her American Dream, she needs to realize that she has wisdom and is prettier than most people in that society. A solid proof of her wisdom is that she can always make “reasonable” choices between Tom and Gatsby to maximum her material benefits. She is also able to pretend to be graceful and chaste for a long time.💪💪 If she could give priority to her conscience but also focus on her status at the same time, she would have been able to save Gatsby and her love experience.😀 Daisy needs to clear off her prejudice that as a girl she is completely unable to determine her love and trapped by class division. Although she is trapped and influenced by the society, I do not think the society should be changed to meet her demands. There should be some restriction between individuals and the society because of natural laws. Daisy herself should be blamed.↓

 As the article says, “young adults can fall into any of four categories that span the spectrum from full independence to being wholly dependent”. Dasiy, as a young girl, is also one of “young adults”. She is likely to be independent in her own way. In this case, Daisy can be more independent to utilize her uniqueness properly, because she used to be traped by the idea that girls are completely dependent on men✌. The “Old Money” is not only a concept, it is made up of many unique and different people. For Daisy, she can be much more independent than she predicts.