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1. Introduction1.1 Research background In America, there were many great writers appearing in the 1920s and F. Scott. Fitzgerald was widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the era. Fitzgerald was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota. After graduating from the Newman School in 1912, Fitzgerald entered into Princeton University. He dedicated himself to the writing and wrote for the literature journals on campus. Due to the poor health, he dropped out of school. In 1917, he joined the army and even insisted his writing after retiring from the military service. In 1920, he published his first long novels named The Side of Paradise and received good reputation. The 1920s is a roaring period called Golden Age in the field of American novels. During this era, American was situating a historical crossroad that suffered the transition of old and new times. It cannot be denied that a historically unprecedented wave of industrialization, a thirst and desire for the uncontrolled consumption, and an earthshaking change of lifestyles accelerate the splendid time. The Great Gatsby is his most well-known novel and regarded as the microcosm of the society in the era of Jazz music. It is a story about the disillusion of American dream in the 1920s, demonstrating the spiritual aspect of American upper classes during the Great Depression. When he concentrated on this novel, his wife had an affair and lived in luxury, which brought great burden on him. His slightly unstable emotions and his disappointment of the present society were brought into The Great Gatsby, surprisingly creating the fascinating charm of the novel. Fitzgerald created this work with the real presentation of him own life, related the society of the Roaring Twenties historically with the context of the novel. Unprecedented economic and industrial prosperity, peoples strong thirst for consumption, the evolution of Jazz representing new music, the upsurge of newborn and confident female were thoroughly described in this novel. The world described by him prevailed mammonism, materialism, commercialism and hedonism. From the detailed description like flapper culture to the whole themes like Fitzgeralds depression of the present crime society resulting in the misfortune of Gatsby, he used these social phenomena of the 1920s adding the readability of Gatsbys story. The publication of The Great Gatsby caused a sensation and made Fitzgerald a success. It is this novel that confirms his status in modern American literature and makes him a representative of Jazz Age and a member of the Lost Generation of the 1920s. Fitzgerald, F. Scott. In The Crack-Up, Fitzgerald (1993) mentioned that even the most prestigious writers T. S. Elliot praised this work as the first step that American fiction has taken since Henry James. 1.2 Need for the studyPractically speaking, this thesis will analyze the social effects on Daisy through her dialogues, reactions and social practice. In the man-dominated society, Daisy is depicted as the leading role of resulting in the misfortune of the story. However, through the delusion, we can have a thorough view on her unfair destiny and reasonable reactions. Although her characteristics and the present society trigger her to avoid the responsibility, she is also a victim of the era and forced to change herself.Theoretically speaking, discourse analysis can provide a new perspective to make readers have better understanding of the main character. Few scholars choose this form of linguistics to analyze the literature. Through analyzing the specific languages and behaviors of Daisy, readers will have a further and deeper comprehension of the female role. 2. Literature review2.1 Previous studies on The Great GatsbyThere have been more than 200 academic papers and periodicals published these decades. Many scholars show great interest in the heroine Daisy Buchanan self characteristics as the internal cause effected on herself and fight for her image distorted by men. Zhang Qing (2003) compares the three females- Daisy, Jordan, and Myrtle from different classical levels. She finds all these women have some commons in living on men. Their traits demonstrate their ideology of losing their original purity. Evi Darmayanti (2005) uses some supporting concepts: marriage, material wealth, and pride to show that in order to maintain her pride, Daisy uses her marriage to achieve material wealth and social status. She defines Daisy as an excessive materialistic young lady and misunderstands the concept of pride, revealing the reason of Daisys failure to maintaining her pride. Zhang Xiaohua (2010) interprets the duality of Daisy as the reasons of the tragedy. Firstly, outside is like angles while inside is like flapper. Pure, enchanting, and innocent as she is while her infatuation and flirtation as she expresses. Secondly, outside is enthusiastic while inside is indifferent. She is selfish and cares little about her daughter but excited about the strangers. Thirdly, outside is a lady while inside is a devil. With the vivid dualities of characteristics, Daisy is doomed to be the root of the disillusion of the American dream and the tragedy of the story. Xia Guhua (2011) cites many examples of Daisys reactions. She sets aside the responsibility of the car accident and elaborates conspiracy represent her immorality. Moreover, she always holds cynical attitudes towards her marriage and her noblest sentiments are subverted by the greed and money-worship. She even never cares about her daughters existence. These render on her indifferent, selfish and irresponsible personalities.Some scholars also focus on the present society at that time as the external cause effected on Daisy. Wu Xuqing (2010) depicts Daisy through the dialogues of four men- Fitzgerald, Gatsby, Tom and Nick. Criticizing on the feminism, the heroine Daisy is reinterpreted to be a courageous, real and helpless under the pressure of masculine discrimination. The Ambivalent Gender Ideology of The Great Gatsby written by Gu Shanping (2013), he demonstrates Fitzgeralds gender ambivalence and the relationships between the main characters. Maintaining masculinity but confessing femininity is always a frequent manner that Fitzgerald applies for in his novels. By contrast, we can easily distinguish the discrepancy of the consciousness and attitudes towards mens or womens emotions and perceptions at that time that advocated many virtues in a man rather than in a woman. According to Gao Yangs (2014). Female Modernity in The Great Gatsby, she classifies different behaviors of Daisy and other female characters, including smoking, driving, dancing and taking part in sports. These phenomena can be classified as symbols for females to enhance their statuses in the male-dominated society. 2.2 Discourse Analysis 2.2.1 DefinitionOver the past three decades, discourse analysis has developed into an emerging discipline of linguistics and has been aroused extensive attention in the field of linguistics. In the process of the development, discourse analysis has been closely connected with literature works. Due to the literature as an essential type in the research, it has become a hot topic to have comprehensive understandings in the aspect of discourse analysis.According to Liu Baoshan (1983), discourse analysis is a general form of many approaches to analyze the study of language in use or any significant semiotic events. The basic elements of discourse analysisdiscourse, writing, conversation, communicative events are made up of cohesion of sentences, utterances, dialogue, monologue and multiperson interchanges. It aims to reveal socio-psychological characteristics of people and analyze the specific use of language that naturally occurs. Scholars mainly focus on the society while language is just a part.2.2.2 ClassificationGenerally speaking, discourse analysis can be divided into three categories: mediated discourse analysis, multimodal discourse analysis, and corpus-based discourse analysis.Mediated discourse analysis mediates discourse, agency, and practice a nexus of practice, which was first laid out by Ron Scollon in the late 1990s. MDA believes discourse must comply for the social activities engaged by people and based on the context. That is discourse is just a component of social activities. The aim of MDA is to understand how the specific communicative behaviors are made through the discourse and how the social structures and ideology of these behaviors are produced again and again.Multimodal discourse analysis refers that the set-up of texts and interaction depends on the mutual influence among multi signals such as language, technologies, images, colors, music and so on rather than limited on the language systems. The theory of multimodal discourse analysis is based on the systemic functional linguistics founded by Halliday. Specifically, this kind of analysis accepts the view that language is the combination of social semiotic and meaning potential from the systemic functional linguistics.Corpus-based discourse analysis is started from the establishment of colossal general corpus and now extensively applied in the discourse analysis. This kind of analysis provides valid and reliable information for the regular rules of specific lexical and grammar models to facilitate the process and analysis of abundant language datum. 2.3 SignificanceMDA is more likely to focus on the social practice rather than discourse, especially concerning the analysis, interpretation, and explanation of social issues. It reminds people of paying close attention to not only the discourse but also the specific context and the social practice itself. It further reveals associations between discourse and society and digs into the various deep motivations that between the lines.MDA also pays attention to the intertexuality and dialogism. It can limit or promote the implement of some certain social practice and the establishment of social statuses belonging to the characters, giving the effect of context into full play. It is a tool that includes the individuals engaging in the social practice and keep up with the relations between individuals and society. With the combination of the theory and the social practice, MDA can help readers to have a comprehensive understanding of the complicated personalities of the characters and the historical background of the novel.