F. Scott Fitzgerald is an American writer who crafted short stories and novels set in the ‘Roaring 20s’ (1920’s). A common feature that connects many of Fitzgerald’s pieces of fiction together, is the appearance of a “golden girl” character, that is to say a beautiful female character who the protagonist longs to be with, however cannot because of the kind of person that they are. Examples of these ‘golden girls’ include Daisy Buchanan of The Great Gatsby, Daisy of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button film (based on Fitzgerald’s short story), Nancy Lamar of The Jelly Bean and Judy Jones of Winter Dreams who shall all be investigated in this essay.

In The Great Gatsby, a novel written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, protagonist Jay Gatsby longs to be with a woman he met and fell in ‘love’ with whilst traveling in the army. This woman is Daisy Buchanan , a wealthy aristocrat who resides in East Egg with husband Tom. When narrator Nick states “He doesn’t know very much about Tom, though he says he’s read a Chicago paper for years just on the chance of catching a glimpse of Daisy’s name. “, we can tell that Gatsby longs for being with Daisy and is very obsessed with both meeting her again and the ideal life that he is almost certain he will be able to create with her.  Unfortunately for Gatsby he can not be with Daisy though as too much time has passed since their last meeting (five years) as he finished his army travels and conducted a successful business to try and match Daisy’s wealth. In this time, both characters have changed, with Gatsby becoming rich and completely obsessed with the idealistic life he will have with Daisy. All the meanwhile Daisy herself has got married and had a child. The astounding effect of this time on the potential relationship is illustrated when Nick says to Gatsby “You can’t repeat the past”.