According to F. Scott Fitzgerald, whom did he base his character Daisy Faye on?

Question

In other words, who in real life was the character based upon? Where is the "flashback" scene, i.e., the recounting of the meeting of Jay Gatsby and Daisy Faye located in real life?

Answer 1

Daisy was based loosely on Zelda Sayre, his wife.

Fitzgerald joined the army in 1917, and in June 1918, was assigned to Camp Sheridan, near Montgomery, Alabama. There he fell in love with a celebrated belle, eighteen-year-old Zelda Sayre, the youngest daughter of an Alabama Supreme Court judge. They got engaged.

He had written a novel "The Romantic Egotist" which was rejected. Unwilling to wait for Fitzgerald to succeed while living on his small salary, Zelda Sayre broke their engagement.

He revised the novel through 1919, and in 1920, it's publication as "This Side of Paradise" made Fitzgerald famous and wealthy, and he married Zelda.

In the novel, Gatsby saw Daisy as a suitor during his military training near her home in Louisville. Gatsby, stung by the need to make himself a wealthy man to vie for Daisy's attention, became involved in organized crime through Meyer Wolfsheim, through which he quickly made his fortune. Daisy, disinclined to wait, became engaged to Tom.

There is also speculation that Daisy was based on Ginevra King, said to be his first love. The two met in 1915 at a sledding party in St. Paul, Minnesota. The debutante daughter of a successful Chicago stockbroker, King had legions of admirers. Fitzgerald, the son of a wholesale grocery salesman, was all too aware of his financial and social limitations, but he pursued her nonetheless, relying on his writing talent to win her over. And he did. For two years they were a part of the social scene around New York, at dances, parties, and campus events. King eventually became engaged to another man.