page_title: Daisy Buchanan
section_title: Creation and conception
hierarchical_section_title: Daisy Buchanan / Creation and conception
caption_attribution_description: English: Ginevra King on the July 1918 cover of Town &amp; Country magazine
context_page_description: Daisy Fay Buchanan is a fictional character in F. Scott Fitzgerald's magnum opus The Great Gatsby. In the novel, Daisy is depicted as a married woman with a daughter who is reunited with her former lover Jay Gatsby, arousing the jealousy of her husband, Tom. She is widely believed to have been based on Ginevra King. She has appeared in various media related to the novel, including feature films and plays.
context_section_description: According to his own letters and diary entries, Fitzgerald's character of Daisy was based on Chicago socialite and debutante, Ginevra King, whom he had met on a visit back home in St. Paul, Minnesota while enrolled as a student at Princeton University. Immediately infatuated with her, according to his biographer Andrew Mizner, Fitzgerald "remained devoted to Ginevra as long as she would allow him to", wrote to her "daily the incoherent, expressive letters all young lovers write", and she would become his inspiration for Daisy, as well as several other characters in his novels and short stories.
  The curator of Fitzgerald manuscripts and letters at Princeton, Don Skemer, has written that Ginerva "remained for Fitzgerald an archetype for the alluring, independent and upper class woman, ultimately unattainable by someone of a modest social background like himself", and that she "was a model for Daisy", as well as being "recognizable in many other [Fitzgerald] characters."
  There is also evidence of Daisy being partially based on Fitzgerald's wife Zelda. Theresa Anne Fowler has written of the similarities that both Daisy and Zelda shared: "the Southern upbringing, the prominent family. And it is no secret that Scott borrowed liberally from Zelda’s early diaries and their own life for his stories." And, when their daughter Scottie was born, Zelda, upon emerging from the anesthesia, was reported to have expressed her hope that their child would be a "beautiful little fool"—one of Daisy's lines, among many others, that have been attributed to Zelda.
  Daisy Jenks was a life-long friend and neighbor of the Van Sweringen Brothers of Cleveland, Ohio, real-life billionaire developers of Shaker Heights, Ohio and Cleveland's Terminal Tower. Cleveland historian Kit Whipple describes possible inspiration for Daisy by the opulent lifestyle of the Jenks and Van Sweringens.
caption: Chicago socialite Ginevra King inspired the character of Daisy.
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