“…a freshly laundered nurse leading a little girl came into the room… Afterward [Gatsby] kept looking at the child with surprise. I don’t think he had ever really believed in its existence before” (117).
Daisy’s daughter further promotes Gatsby’s relationship with Daisy and his desire to start a life together to a fantasy than a reality. Gatsby wants Daisy to proclaim she never loved Tom and to run away with him. This fantasy of Gatsby’s is further dissociated with reality by the existence of Daisy’s daughter. Her existence makes it so that Daisy is not just abandoning her marriage and Tom, but also her family and child. Her existence shocks and disturbs Gatsby because it does not blend with his fantastic scheme of his love for Daisy and their future. Because the daughter did not fit into his fantasy, Gatsby’s imagination made her unreal; therefore, his experiencing her physical existence shakes the foundation of his fantasy, further removing it from the possibility of reality.
Mary-Daisy's daughter (Pammy-I am always shocked at that name) seems like such an odd element in the novel. I find myself as jarred by her appearance each time I read the novel as you describe Gatsby feeling. Then again, Daisy doesn't really seem all that connected to the child, does she?
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