She wouldn't let go of the letter. She took it into the tub with her and squeezed it up in a wet ball, and only let me leave it in the soap-dish when she saw that it was coming to pieces like snow.
Chapter 4 · Jordan Baker
Context
Jordan recounts the night before Daisy's wedding to Tom Buchanan, when she found Daisy drunk and clutching a letter—presumably from Gatsby. After Daisy declares she wants to call off the wedding, Jordan and a maid put her in a cold bath to sober her up, but Daisy refuses to release the letter even in the water.
Analysis
The letter functions as a symbol of Daisy's authentic emotional connection to Gatsby, and its physical disintegration—'coming to pieces like snow'—prefigures how that connection will dissolve under the weight of practical reality. The simile comparing the paper to melting snow suggests both purity and impermanence, while the tactile imagery of Daisy clutching the letter even as it falls apart embodies the novel's central tension between desperate longing and inevitable loss.
How to Use in Essay
Ideal for essays on Daisy's characterization as torn between romantic feeling and material security, or for analyzing how physical objects in the novel symbolize emotional states that characters cannot articulate directly.