Daisy Jones & The Six

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2019

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Author’s Note-Chapter 3

Chapters 4-6

Chapters 7-8

Chapters 9-10

Chapters 11-12

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

Fatherhood

Billy Dunne’s character develops a complex early on in his life when his father leaves the family, leaving a young Billy responsible for his mother and his brother, Graham. A decade after his father leaves, Billy and Graham see him at a wedding, but he doesn’t seem to recognize them. This experience opens Billy’s scar, and his resentment and hurt over his father is left to simmer in his psyche. The issue of fatherhood becomes important when Billy himself becomes a father, and without any role models he feels unequipped to deal with the responsibility.

Billy’s sober lifestyle is intimately tied to his identity as a father. The safety and happiness of his daughters is the light that leads him through some of the darkest temptations. Billy’s fixation on fatherhood affects everyone in the novel, as the music he writes and decisions he makes for the band are often undergirded by his family. Billy works hard to be a father figure, but he never loses the desire for a father. When Teddy Price nurtures his music and helps him to get sober, Billy finds a father figure. When Teddy dies, Billy is unmoored yet again.

Music

Music is such a significant motif throughout this novel that it is almost its own character. Music ties people together but also drives them apart. Music acts as a symbolic salvation for traumatized people such as Daisy and Billy. In music, they can pour out their authentic souls and anxieties, free of fear. Music is an escape as it allows Daisy and Billy to live in their own world, away from the tensions of sobriety, the band, family, and life itself. In many ways, music is the common ground on which all the characters connect. Without the desire to make good music, the conflicts between characters such as Eddie and Billy, Karen and Graham, or Daisy and Billy would have defeated the band before they could really begin.

Music is a type of salvation for Daisy and Billy, because within their music they are their best selves. However, it also poses a challenge to their lives. Music is the source of a can’t-live-with-it-can’t-live-without-it dilemma. On the one hand, Daisy and Billy need music like they need air; without a way of expressing themselves, they have immense energy and no outlet except self-destruction. On the other hand, the music industry is filled with danger: men who prey on Daisy, easy access to drugs, and sometimes the risk of selling out the very music they love so dearly.