Daisy Buchanan is a very rich denizen of East Egg, the more fashionable and upscale of the two Eggs. She is married to a man, Tom Buchanan, who also comes from "old money," meaning that he hasn't worked for it but has, instead, inherited his fortune. She is selfish, chastising her cousin, the narrator, Nick, for not coming to her wedding (even though he'd been away fighting in the war). She is also fairly cynical, preferring her daughter be "'a beautiful little fool'" because she thinks that the best thing for a woman to be, presumably because she won't be smart enough to be unhappy. When "Her eyes flashed around her in a defiant way, rather like Tom's, [...] she laughed with thrilling scorn. 'Sophisticated -- God, I'm sophisticated," she says. Nick felt in this moment that she'd "asserted her membership in a rather distinguished secret society to which she and Tom belonged." Thus, she is spoiled and entitled and elitist as well.
By the end of the story, she's killed a woman and allowed her lover, Jay Gatsby, to take the blame for it. Daisy abandoned Gatsby when she found out how he'd made his fortune, returning to her husband, a man she'd recently described as "'disgusting'" because he was the right kind of rich, the kind that brings status and power with it. In the end, Nick says, "They were careless people, Tom and Daisy -- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness [...] and let other people clean up the mess they had made. . . ." He was right when he'd called them "'rotten'" earlier to Gatsby; they ultimately care nothing for anyone but themselves. It is no coincidence that Gatsby, Wilson, and Myrtle all wind up dead as a result of their interactions with this terrible couple.
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