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"Well, I tried to swing the wheel --" He broke off, and suddenly I guessed at the truth. "Was Daisy driving?" "Yes," he said after a moment, "but of course I'll say I was. You see, when we left New York she was very nervous and she thought it would steady her to drive -- and this woman rushed out at us just as we were passing a car coming the other way. It all happened in a minute but it seemed to me that she wanted to speak to us, thought we were somebody she knew. Well, first Daisy turned away from the woman toward the other car, and then she lost her nerve and turned back. The second my hand reached the wheel, I felt the shock -- it must have killed her instantly…Anyhow -- Daisy stepped on it. I tried to make her stop but she couldn't so I pulled on the emergency brake. Then she fell over into my lap and I drove on." Page 151 |
| This passage illustrates the carelessness that Nick had
accused of Daisy. Here, she is
careless in two ways. First
of all, she was careless in her relationship with Gatsby.
She allowed her infatuation with him, and his with her to carry
on to the point that her marriage with Tom, a marriage she was not ready
to give up, was in a dangerous state and ready to collapse.
But when she realized that she was not quite ready, or perhaps
simply did not want to leave Tom, her relationship with Gatsby had grown
too deep for it to be cut off without serious ramifications.
Secondly, she was careless enough to be speeding down the road in
a high emotional state at such a speed that she could not avoid hitting
Myrtle. The result of such carelessness was the death of three
people: Myrtle, whose cause
of death was obvious, Gatsby, who died because he took the blame of
Daisy's careless accident, and Wilson, who was devastated by the death
of his cheating wife.
- Clare |