The word that can sum up many of the themes in this book is position. The word encompasses themes like class, wealth, social standing and others.
Take Daisy, for example, while Nick and Jordan were their dinner she talked about her little girl. She was very upset after the birth because Tom was nowhere to be found. When the nurse told her she was a girl, Daisy said, "I'm glad it's a girl. And I hope she'll be a fool-----that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool." The social position a woman is criticized here. Daisy is witty and also terribly clever, far more than her brute husband. Yet she is the one treated as inferior, because she is a woman. This also why Tom can flaunt his affair, he doesn't have to worry about the consequence.
On the other hand, Daisy shows how people can use their position to look down.
A segment of a social network
Daisy
I Got a Girl (Tripping Daisy song)As Nick said about Daisy, " I waited, and sure enough, in a moment she looked at me with an absolute smirk on her lovely face, as if she had asserted her membership in a rather distinguish secret society to which she and Tom belonged." This is superior mind set. The sadness for Daisy is not that she's trapped in a marriage and at the mercy of her husband, but that she will not choose to be free or independent.
The word careless also describes Daisy well. Many of the things that Daisy did, the accident with Myrtle in particular, show a woman who is just careless. She has become very much wrapped up in herself. Part of this is due to the fact that she had been spoiled all her life. She was born into money and had an...