I originally posted this as a book question..... (Spoilers)

[Sheila]

But I haven't gotten any takers yet, and I'm really curious.

We know that Gatsby "took" Daisy, "took her because he had no real right to touch her hand." Fitzgerald makes sure that we know this.

Daisy was not a virgin when she married Tom. How big a deal was that to him? How big a deal was this for that time period? Were we already so sophisticated that we could assume it made no difference to Tom? or did Daisy make up an explanation for this fact?

Do you suppose that Tom understood that he wasn't Daisy's first, and that Gatsby was?

[Feliks]

Sheila wrote: "Daisy was not a virgin when she married Tom. How big a deal was that to him? "

It might have mattered just a tad; but probably not much because America's wealthy inveterately --via their mimicry of the class model found in countries actually possessing royalty--always modeled their behavior those other examples. Just as aristocrats 'marry within' and 'create alliances' strictly within their own set, so do America's rich.

Sheila wrote: "How big a deal was this for that time period?"
It was fairly important. You can see attitudes towards the male/capitalist/patriarchical created 'cult-of-virginity' illustrated in the works of Theodore Dreiser, Edith Wharton, and Henry James. Though FSF doesn't touch upon the subject, we can infer from these other authors (if we don't turn--as we should--to history itself to reply to us). For example, surely everyone remembers the stigma attached to children-born-out-of-wedlock, and covered-up abortions in that era.

Sheila wrote: "Were we already so sophisticated that we could assume it made no difference to Tom?"

Such sophistication no, was not prevalent among average citizenry at the time. Among the wealthy themselves it might have been overlooked or swept-under-the-rug as the case called for. But more so out of decadence rather than sophistication. Lack of morals dominates the wealthy, though they posture and preen towards morals when it suits them. Whatever the circumstance, their priority is maintaining their class boundary between themselves and the rest of us. See 'The Rich and the Super Rich: A Study in the Power of Money Today'

p.s. It's truly odd that this enormous and nearly all-powerful theme of the book is rejected by some oafs in the book's audience today.

Sheila wrote: "Do you suppose that Tom understood that he wasn't Daisy's first, and that Gatsby was?"

He must have recognized it on the occasion where they conceived their first child. Regarding Gatsby, I can't recall whether FSF 'suggested this awareness' on Tom's part (as reflected in his manner) when the mature Jay Gatsby is introduced to him.

There was a name change on Gatsby's part, remember. Was Daisy clever enough to brush away all connection between the two men, past and present? I can't recall.

Great questions, shows you were a thoughtful reader when you enjoyed this book.

[Monty J]

Feliks wrote: "There was a name change on Gatsby's part, remember. Was Daisy clever enough to brush away all connection between the two men, past and present?"

Daisy met Gatsby after he'd changed his name. She never knew him by any other name. At the time of his death, only Nick and Gatsby's father were aware of his true identity, a testament to how close he and Nick had become.

[Monty J]

Sheila wrote: "Do you suppose that Tom understood that he wasn't Daisy's first, and that Gatsby was?"

I am curious to know where this notion comes from. I find no indication anywhere in the book that Gatsby was "Daisy's first" anything--first lover, boyfriend or sexual partner.

On the contrary, there's textual evidence to the contrary:ChVIII,
p. 111 (Nick narrating, paraphrasing what Gatsby told him in his house in the wee morning hours after Myrtle's death about how he and Daisy had met before the war):

She was the first "nice" girl he had ever known.
...He went to her house. ...It amazed him--he had never been in such a beautiful house before. ...There was a ripe mystery about it, a hint of bedrooms upstairs more beautiful and cool than other bedrooms, of gay and radiant activities taking place through its corridors, of romances that were not musty and laid away already in lavender, but fresh and breathing and redolent of this year's shining motor-cars... . ...It excited him too that many men had already loved Daisy---it increased her value.

The implication here is that Daisy was romantically experienced and certainly no virgin, an implication further supported in the fact that there was no mention of loss of virginity when Gatsby "took her."

The confusion may arise from Gatsby's reference to her as a "nice girl," which is a term that probably, in this context, means she comes from a nice--meaning socially refined (right schools and clubs, good manners, etc.)--family.

[Sheila]

"...It excited him too that many men had already loved Daisy---it increased her value."

I'd considered that option (that Daisy wasn't a virgin before her tryst with Gastby) when I posted the question, but to me this statement meant more that many men had wanted Daisy and had pursued her, rather than any literal interpretation.

I guess I chose to believe Daisy was a virgin before Gatsy, that she gave herself to him because she loved him; a different set of circumstances than those before him (as far as we know).

[Sheila]

Feliks wrote: "Sheila wrote: "Daisy was not a virgin when she married Tom. How big a deal was that to him? "

It might have mattered just a tad; but probably not much because America's wealthy inveterately --via ..."

Thanks for the reply, Feliks.

I didn't know if Tom's narcissistic personality maybe prevented him from even noticing or caring about Daisy's "deficiency".

That's the only explanation I can think of - given the time period and strata of society that they inhabited (and I don't know a whole lot about it, admittedly); I never got a hint at all of any lingering personal rancor about this.

[Gary]

Sheila wrote: "We know that Gatsby "took" Daisy, "took her because he had no real right to touch her hand." Fitzgerald makes sure that we know this.

Daisy was not a virgin when she married Tom. How big a deal was that to him? How big a deal was this for that time period? Were we already so sophisticated that we could assume it made no difference to Tom? or did Daisy make up an explanation for this fact?

Do you suppose that Tom understood that he wasn't Daisy's first, and that Gatsby was?"

On several levels, the Tom/Daisy relationship is much more central to the theme of the story than is the Daisy/Gatsby one. Gatsby's pursuit of Daisy is, of course, the central motivation of the story, and without that motivation Gatsby probably remains Gatz, and without that relationship we have a very different plot/character. He may have still remained very ambitious as a young man, but his social aspirations would not have been quite the same, or had the same fatal flaw. Gatzby (not a typo...) just never had the background and connections (as distinct from gonnections...) in order to penetrate the world in which Tom/Daisy live, and it's unlikely that he ever could have them.

With that in mind, the Tom/Daisy relationship is not the focus of the story, and what we learn of that aspect of the American aristocracy really comes through in bits and pieces. But, essentially, I don't think there's much that really matters to these people beyond their place in Society (capital S.) Tom is certainly going to play the injured party, but he readily accepts Daisy back after she killed Myrtle. Similarly, Daisy may exhibit a certain amount of drama when confronted with Tom's infidelity, but I don't think she ever seriously entertains the idea of leaving him over his sexual behavior. Even when offered an alternative like Gatsby, she doesn't really take long to make her decision. She hems and haws, and plays the "little fool" but it's a financial/social decision, and she makes the one that has the most profitable bottom line. Any emotional response on her part is, as Gatsby characterizes it, "only personal" which I read to mean his flawed understanding of her emotional presentation of a rational choice. Rich girls don't marry poor boys, and in fact they don't marry the less rich boy either if given a choice....

Whether Daisy represents anything other than a status symbol to either Gatsby or Tom is rather debatable. Neither of them seem much bothered by her sexual history. Such considerations are really very middle class, and neither of them are from that social background. One of the weird parities of social class is that the very rich and the very poor have certain attitudes in common when it comes to moral issues, including things like sex and marriage. Tom, of course, was born wealthy and Gatz poor. Gatz pretty well skips right past middle class, climbing right onto a yacht from his little boat. Neither of these two men are bothered with bourgeois ideas like marital fidelity except where it serves their purposes. Gatsby's ambition is, arguably, much closer to what most of us think of as love in that it can be argued that his ambition is all about winning a girl, but even his goals are all wrapped up in his aspirations. We know from his father's appearance later in the book that young Gatz always was looking to the future....

So, no, I don't think Tom is bothered by Daisy's sexual history, nor really is Gatsby, and I think he is well aware that he was not her first sexual partner. He's experienced enough in sexual matters that he would have been able to figure it out by their honeymoon, and if it bothered him at all it wasn't enough for him to leave the marriage.

Tom cheats on Daisy immediately after their marriage, though, so it is interesting to speculate that his figuring out that Daisy was not quite what she presented herself as being might be what motivated him to do that—or what he'd use as a justification for his behavior, at least. But we get very little information about that particular situation (Jordan's brief summary/description to Nick) so we can only use later text as evidence. Tom is a serial philanderer as he appears in the text, and from what we get of his history, cheating on Daisy doesn't seem so out of character, so I suspect he'd have got around to it sooner or later.

[Sheila]

Gary wrote: "Sheila wrote: "We know that Gatsby "took" Daisy, "took her because he had no real right to touch her hand." Fitzgerald makes sure that we know this.

Daisy was not a virgin when she married Tom. Ho..."

Thanks for your reply, Gary. I'd also idly wondered about the origins of Tom's infidelity and if it might've possibly had something to do with Daisy's past experience.

I have another point for which I'd like some input (yours, Feliks', Marty's, anybody's), mostly because I've seen so much discussion about this story, and yet I found another question I haven't seen addressed.

What part does this interaction have in Daisy's decision to not leave Tom?

Gatsby: just tell him (Tom) the truth - that you never loved him - and it's all wiped out forever......

Daisy: Oh, you want too much! I love you know - isn't that enough? I can't help what's past. I did love him once - but I loved you too....

It's almost like Daisy's gotten a hint of the depth of Gatsby's feelings, a love that can't acknowledge the possibility of her love, ever, at anytime, for the man she married. Obsession on his part... fear on hers, for how out-of-touch with reality his dreams and desires are?

That the reality of "her" might clash against his dreams of her, to nightmarish results.

The concept of one love and only one love throughout your life seems antiquated, what with second and third marriages being a fairly common occurrence these days.

I just wonder if there may have been a little more thought to Daisy's decision to stay with Tom, rather than the just-plain-"carelessness" that Nick assigns to her actions (or even primarily financial/social reasons).

[Gary]

Sheila wrote: "What part does this interaction have in Daisy's decision to not leave Tom?"

I don't think Daisy ever seriously entertained leaving Tom for Gatsby. She may have implied it in some conversations with him that we (and Nick) aren't privy to, and she may have even fantasized about their future together in a way that would lead Gatsby, who was himself very involved in fooling himself on an emotional level, to believe she wanted to leave Tom, but I don't read a lot of actual interest in leaving Tom in what we have of her in the actual text.

That interaction between Daisy and Gatsby, for instance, illustrates the point. Daisy thinks Gatsby "wants too much" in that he wants her to say that she NEVER loved Tom at all, and—pointedly to my mind—she uses the past tense to describe BOTH her feelings for Tom AND for Gatsby. "I did... once" and "loved you too...." She does say (before that tense shift) that she loves (present tense) him (Gatsby) but, grammatically, that means she loved Gatsby, then loved Tom, and then loves Gatsby at that moment. I don't think that's just slippery language on FSF's part. I think he very much knew what he was writing there. Love doesn't mean the same thing for Daisy that it does for Gatsby, nor is it the romantic ideal that I think most folks associate with the term, particularly in literature. Gatsby's love (his version of it, at least, which is tinged with a lot of personal ambition and aspiration) for Daisy never changes. Even after she undercuts him in that scene, he still can't quite wrap his head around her comments. It's "just personal" to him.

Sometimes folks want to attribute a lot of depth of character to Daisy, and while I don't think she's meant to be entirely the bubblehead that she sometimes presents herself as, I don't think she's got a lot of depth. People like to read a lot of profundity into her "little fool" speech, for instance, but I don't think there's really all that much there. It's as easily read as shallow as deep, and her flip-flopping between Tom and Gatsby fits more consistently with a shallow character than a weighty one.

[Monty J]

Gary wrote: "Sheila wrote: "...and her flip-flopping between Tom and Gatsby fits more consistently with a shallow character than a weighty one ."


His schizophrenic wife Zelda's mental illness likely influenced Fitzgerald's portrayal of Daisy, perhaps impairing his ability to show her as a loving mate and mother. Zelda was the model for Daisy, and Scott is known to have borrowed heavily from her diaries. Given Zelda's prominent affair the year before TGG was published, Fitzgerald's head must have been swimming with the emotional fallout from her infidelity (not to mention his own.) The term "love" must have been hard for him to comprehend, let alone render on the page.

I wonder at Fitzgerald's ability to show characters expressing love toward one another. He didn't very often or convincingly in TGG show them acting (or speaking) in a loving manner. George Wilson being the sole exception. He worked long hours and diligently in providing for Myrtle. To keep from losing her to Tom, he locked her up and was wiling to pull up stakes and move west. He was devastated by her death and committed murder then suicide because of her.

Where were the gestures of affection among the wealthy? Tom gave Daisy expensive jewelry and fought to save his marriage by having Gatsby investigated. He publicly apologized for his infidelity and pledged to reform. Daisy cried over Gatsby's letter and swooned over his expensive shirts. Gatsby gave Daisy nothing. He lured her to him and took, took her before and after her marriage to Tom.