Women in The Great Gatsby are overcome with the concepts of wealth, materialism and gold-digging. The term, ‘beautiful little fool,’ embodies one of the thematic cornerstones of the novel: an archetypal, subordinate role for women of the ‘roaring twenties’. In the 1920s, a new woman was born. She smoked, drank, danced, and voted. She cut her hair, wore make-up, and went to petting parties. She was giddy and took risks. She was a flapper. Daisy Buchanan is Nick’s cousin. We see how Nick describes her staring at him as if there ‘was no one in the world’ she would rather have seen. Daisy is portrayed as lazy and passive. She says she is ‘paralysed with happiness’ to see Nick. Yes, I bet she was. ‘I hope she’ll be a fool. That’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.’ Daisy speaks these words in Chapter 1 as she describes to Nick and Jordan her hopes for her infant daughter. While not directly relevant to the novel’s main themes, this quote offers a revealing glimpse into Daisy’s character. Daisy is not a fool herself but is the product of a social environment that, to a great extent is dominated by men and does not value intelligence in women. ‘She went back in to her rich house, her full, rich life, leaving Gatsby with nothing.’ When I read it, I think that Daisy feels personally victimized by her world; there is a wounded ambition inside her, resultant of some sort of defeat. The older generation values subservience and docility in females, and the younger generation values thoughtless giddiness and pleasure-seeking. Daisy’s remark is somewhat sardonic: while she refers to the social values of her era, she does not seem to challenge them. Instead, she describes her own boredom with life and seems to imply that a girl can have more fun if she is beautiful and simplistic. Daisy herself often tries to act such a part. She conforms to the social standard of American feminini