Chapter summaries The Chosen and the Beautiful Nghi Vo

Chapter 10 Summary and Analysis

⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.

Summary

The chapter opens at Daisy's wedding to Tom Buchanan, held at the Church of the Nazarene in Louisville nine months after the Armistice. The ceremony draws family from across the state and beyond: Carlyles, Parrishes, Weltys, Anselms, and others. The church is filled with blue hyacinth, which Jordan notes begins dying the moment it is cut. Jordan is partnered with Peter Woolsey, a college friend of Tom's, and Tom's mother charges her with keeping him from drinking too much before the reception. Later, Jordan dances with Walter Finley, recently returned from the war with his wounded arm in a black sling. He kisses her at one in the morning, and she takes him back to the mother-in-law unit behind her house, partly to keep her mind off what happened twenty-four hours earlier.

The narrative then flashes back to the day before the wedding. Jordan is at Daisy's house helping make garlands when Mrs. Fay, sharp and impatient, tells her to do something about Daisy before the Columbus cousins arrive for the bridal dinner. Jordan finds Daisy drunk on Sauternes, distraught over a letter from Jay at Camp Taylor. Daisy wants to return the pearls Tom gave her seven weeks earlier. Jordan helps her into a cold bath to sober her up, and the letter—written in cheap ink that runs into an unreadable mess—is ruined in the process.

Daisy reveals the letter's contents: Jay is back, he is alive, and he wants her. She briefly entertains the idea of running away to meet him, but decides against it. All the relatives have descended, the hotels are full, and the hyacinth are arriving at dawn. She cannot disappoint anyone, and she reasons that Jay Gatsby will only disappoint her. She sounds momentarily like her mother before bursting into tears.

Desperate to get Daisy to the bridal dinner, Jordan performs paper-cutting magic, cutting a double of Daisy from a high school photograph. The judge once told Jordan about the Paper Cutter Cults of Indochina, where paper is given the same accord as human life. Jordan cuts freehand, guided by instinct, and produces a paper Daisy who is slightly unformed—a high-school version, two or three years younger. Jordan accidentally slices off three fingers from the double's right hand, so Daisy stuffs white silk gloves with fringe scraps to hide the damage. The double wears the pearls and attends the bridal dinner in Daisy's place, charming everyone.

When the bridal party returns past one in the morning, the real Daisy waits in the garden under the dogwoods. As the double bubbles about how wonderful the evening was, Daisy swings a spade and kills her paper double, striking again and again until the paper catches fire. She buries the ashes in the garden, recovering the pearls—stained but unbroken—and fastening them around her own throat. She kisses Jordan's hand and tells her to return at seven the next morning for the wedding.

The chapter closes back at the wedding itself, with Jordan dancing with Walter and trying not to think about what she witnessed.

Key Events

  • Daisy marries Tom Buchanan at the Church of the Nazarene, nine months after the Armistice.

  • The day before the wedding, Daisy receives a letter from Jay Gatsby at Camp Taylor.

  • Daisy gets drunk on Sauternes and wants to return Tom's pearls.

  • Jordan helps Daisy sober up; the letter is ruined in the bath.

  • Jordan cuts a paper double of Daisy from a photograph using paper-cutting magic.

  • The double attends the bridal dinner wearing the pearls.

  • Daisy kills the paper double with a spade in the garden and buries the ashes.

  • Daisy recovers the pearls and instructs Jordan to return at seven the next morning for the wedding.

Character Development

  • Daisy: This chapter reveals the depth of Daisy's conflict. She is genuinely torn between Gatsby and Tom, drunk and distraught the day before her wedding. But she ultimately chooses obligation over love, reasoning that she cannot disappoint the assembled relatives and that Gatsby will only disappoint. Her decision to create and then destroy a paper double is both practical and brutal—she uses magic to fulfill her social obligations while preserving some part of herself, then violently destroys the evidence. The scene where she kills the double shows a ruthless, almost sane determination.

  • Jordan: Jordan's complicity is central. She performs the paper-cutting magic despite her unease, driven by Daisy's certainty and her own loyalty. She is disturbed by what she does—she dreams of paper dolls and scissors—and the violence of the double's destruction haunts her. Her encounter with Walter Finley serves as a distraction from the horror of the previous day.

  • Mrs. Fay: Sharp and dismissive, she treats Daisy as a problem to be managed and Jordan as a servant. Her impatience creates the pressure that forces the paper-double solution.

Themes, Symbols, or Motifs

  • Marriage as obligation: Daisy's wedding is presented as a social duty, not a love match. The hyacinth that begins dying the moment it is cut is a symbol for the marriage itself—beautiful but already decaying.

  • Appearance vs. reality: The paper double embodies this theme. The double is charming and beautiful, attending the dinner in Daisy's place, while the real Daisy hides in the garden. The wedding itself is a performance of happiness that conceals Daisy's true feelings.

  • Paper-cutting magic: The novel's magical realism is on full display. Jordan's cutting is described as instinctive, guided by something she usually prefers to ignore. The judge's lecture on the Paper Cutter Cults of Indochina frames this as a practice with deep cultural roots, but one that has never been duplicated in the West—until Jordan does it.

  • Destruction of the double: The killing of the paper double is a kind of sacrifice. Daisy destroys the version of herself that performed her social duty, burying it in the garden. The pearls survive, stained but unbroken, suggesting that the marriage itself will survive—but not unscathed.

  • The demoniac: Mrs. Fay's restorative drink, which Daisy uses to erase the evidence of her tears, is another symbol of the performance of beauty and the erasure of authentic emotion.

Why This Chapter Matters

This chapter is pivotal for several reasons. It establishes the circumstances of Daisy's marriage to Tom, which is the foundation of the novel's central conflict. It also reveals the depth of Daisy's feelings for Gatsby—she is genuinely distraught at the prospect of marrying Tom, and only her sense of obligation prevents her from running away. The paper-double sequence is the novel's most explicit engagement with its magical realist premise, showing how the supernatural is woven into the everyday lives of these characters. Finally, it deepens Jordan's character, showing her complicity in Daisy's choices and the psychological cost of that complicity.

Study Questions and Answers

1. Why does Daisy choose to marry Tom despite her feelings for Gatsby?

Daisy's decision is driven by obligation and social expectation. She explicitly says she cannot disappoint the assembled relatives, and she reasons that Gatsby will only disappoint. Her choice reflects the social pressures of her class and era, where marriage is a duty rather than a personal choice.

2. What does the paper double reveal about Daisy's character?

The paper double shows Daisy's pragmatism and her willingness to use magic to maintain appearances. She creates a version of herself to perform her social obligations, then destroys it violently when it is no longer needed. The double is also a younger, slightly unformed version of Daisy—suggesting that the part of herself she sacrifices is the part that might have chosen differently.

3. How does Jordan's role in this chapter complicate her character?

Jordan is both complicit and disturbed. She performs the paper-cutting magic despite her unease, driven by Daisy's certainty and her own loyalty. But the violence of the double's destruction haunts her, and she uses her encounter with Walter Finley to distract herself. Her complicity suggests that she is willing to do things she finds morally troubling for Daisy's sake, which foreshadows her later involvement in the novel's events.

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