Beautiful Shirts
On page 92, Daisy sobs, "They're such beautiful shirts. It makes me sad because I've never seen such- such beautiful shirts before."
When first reading this section, it made absolutely no sense to me. I could not understand why Daisy would cry over beauitful shirts, but later on you learn more about the relationship of Daisy and Gatsby. When I later learned that Gatsby tricked Daisy into thinking he was very wealthy so she would like him, I immediately thought of the irony of this passage. Daisy could not understand why Gatsby, with all his supposed wealth, was not able to visit her when she needed companionship. Daisy left Gatsby for Tom and his wealth, but now she is terribly unhappy with Tom and sees all the lovely thing Gatsby has aquired. The entire situation seems to crash on her at once and, overwhelmed with emotions, she sobs stupidly about shirts.
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Nathan Hart on Beautiful Shirts: When I read this part of the b
When I read this part of the book, it stuck out to me as well. I had a little different thought of what it means. In this part of the book, Daisy and Gatsby have reunited for the first time in nearly 5 years. When Gatsby starts showing her all the different colors of shirts that he has, and I think that each represents a moment in the past 5 years that Daisy has missed with him. They tell the different colors and designs of the shirts each having something different about them. At this moment in time, Daisy realizes that she has been very unhappy with Tom and that she is in love with Gatsby. I think that at this moment she forgives Gatsby for anything that he has done, not coming back to her after the war, and everything else. It is a very eye opening moment in the story and the rest of the story stems off this moment.
I read this sensing a deeper explanation I couldn't pin point. Agreeing with Justin, I gathered it was an accumulation of emotions combined with some realization that triggered her response. But I also wondered if it simply showed how flaky Daisy's character is. That isn't the only odd statement to come from her. A page and a half later she tells Nick she wants to put him in a pink cloud and push him around in it.