The pearl necklace, which in The Great Gatsby is a minor detail, takes on new symbolic value in Beautiful Little Fools. In Cantor’s novel, the pearl necklace is a symbol of moderation, wealth, and commodification of marriage. Pearls, unlike diamonds, are not human made they were formed under pressure in a living creature. This is an image that mirrors the emotional pressure with which women, including Daisy, grapple throughout the novel. The necklace, a wedding present from Tom, is more than jewelry it’s a chain that holds Daisy captive to a life of extravagance, but to manipulation and control as well. Cantor reimagines the infamous scene in which Daisy is on the verge of tossing the necklace into the trash on the night of the wedding. Here, the scene is recast with horror, agency, and vulnerability. It is a moment of conversion, one where Daisy weighs the cost of sacrificing love for security, world-acceptance at the cost of self-determination. The necklace is as much a symbol of Daisy’s wedding as cultural ideals of femininity. A symbol of status and respect. To wear the necklace is to be included in the spectacle of the ideal wife, the attractive possession. In doing so, Beautiful Little Fools elevates a symbol of wealth to a metaphor of strangulation. It shows readers that excess, when coupled with repression, is an ornamented birdcage and that the tokens women most frequently receive have strings that are not seen.