Daisy, Daisy...

Two years ago--before I knew there would be a new movie version of the story--I reread The Great Gatsby.  I hadn’t remembered what a grim story it is.  I continue to read reviews of the film but can’t bring myself to see it.  Today I came across this interesting critique of Daisy Buchanan: 

Daisy isn't awful, [as many reviews proclaim] she is trapped and scared -- and that is how Mulligan plays her, timidly. Raised a debutante in Louisville, she is expected to marry as a teenager, and she does, to the alcoholic, racist, chronically unfaithful Tom Buchanan. Daisy hasn't had the chance to go to college, or travel the world in the army, as the male characters have. She has a baby before she becomes an adult, and thus is hardly prepared to be an attentive mother. If there are opportunities out there for Daisy to live a more exciting, fulfilling life, she is only dimly aware of them. Is it any wonder she idealizes her first, adolescent romance, with a sweet young officer? Her brief affair with Gatsy is probably one of the only things Daisy has ever done fully by choice. Look at her wrists, bound by diamond cuffs. She is shackled by her own privilege. 

(From the blog of Dana Goldstein)