Throughout The Great Gatsby, one of the main characters, Daisy, showed little to no progress within herself whatsoever. In the beginning, our Daisy classifies herself as "a beautiful little fool" and that is what she remains throughout the novel. She is taken care of by Tom in the beginning and later we find out that the only reason she is being taken care of by Tom is because he has always been rich whereas her first suitor, Gatsby, was a poor soldier. Daisy has always and will always need someone (some man) to take care of her because what is she besides a beautiful, foolish little trophy.
In other words, Daisy is a tool. She is held in Tom's tool belt, used for daily necessities, and then promptly polished and put back into the tool belt.
Daisy has no mind of her own. She engaged in the social norm of her time and married money over love, bought into the whole mind set of "women are nothing more than beautiful little fools", remained careless throughout the "roaring 20s" which was of course the norm, and stayed with a husband who led a double life with a poor woman near the city. Daisy showed her own will, I'd say twice throughout the novel: first with her affair with Gatsby and second with her running over Myrtle and not listening to Gatsby when he told her to pull over and stop, though I suppose that was more a matter of fear than will.
Out of all the characters in the book, except for perhaps Tom, Daisy showed the least amount of growth in the end, even after Gatsby's death, she remained that careless woman, that child she was in the beginning through her "beautiful little fool" speech.
Daisy had a voice that could have brought men to their knees and that did bring men to their knees and yet she remained powerless. Powerless to think, powerless to do anything.
Such a beautiful, little fool.
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Shanita you are correct, Daisy had grew the least in the book. She only came to a realization that she is what she is. With Gatsby, I think she hoped to be a different person,but she realized that she cannot change, and went back to Tom. She saw that the only way she could survive in the lifestyle that she had become accustomed to was to play dumb. Her being dumb would be less of a threat to the people who wield power like Tom. Her stupidity was her security because then only her beauty would be seen not her true self.
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