Does Daisy love Gatsby or Tom? Why does Tom insist on switching cars with Gatsby when they go to the city? Why is Nick the narrator of the story? Why does Tom bring up race so often? Why is Myrtle attracted to Tom? Why does Gatsby stop throwing parties? Quotes Jordan Baker. Jordan Baker instinctively avoided clever, shrewd men, and now I saw that this was because she felt safer on a plane where any divergence from a code would be thought impossible.
She was incurably dishonest. There was Jordan beside me, who, unlike Daisy, was too wise ever to carry well-forgotten dreams from age to age.
Nick feels that they are careless people. When George disappears in the late afternoon, he makes his way to the Buchanan mansion to confront Tom.
Begin typing your search term above and press enter to search. Press ESC to cancel. Ben Davis October 27, What does Jordan symbolize in The Great Gatsby? What does the car accident symbolize in The Great Gatsby? Who says it takes two to make an accident? Is Jordan from The Great Gatsby an honest person? What kind of person is Jordan Baker? What color does Jordan Baker represent? What did Jordan reveal about her personality in her conversation with Nick about rotten drivers?
Why does Jordan say that she likes Nick? What does Jordan say to Nick? They're so intimate. At small parties there isn't any privacy. This is an early example of Jordan's unexpectedly clever observations —throughout the novel she reveals a quick wit and keen eye for detail in social situations.
This comment also sets the stage for the novel's chief affair between Daisy and Gatsby, and how at the small party in Chapter 7 their secrets come out to disastrous effect. Compare Jordan's comment to Daisy's general attitude of being too sucked into her own life to notice what's going on around her. That's why I like you. Here we get a sense of what draws Jordan and Nick together—he's attracted to her carefree, entitled attitude while she sees his cautiousness as a plus.
After all, if it really does take two to make an accident, as long as she's with a careful person, Jordan can do whatever she wants! We also see Jordan as someone who carefully calculates risks —both in driving and in relationships.
This is why she brings up her car accident analogy again at the end of the book when she and Nick break up—Nick was, in fact, a "bad driver" as well, and she was surprised that she read him wrong. Another example of Jordan's observant wit , this quote about Daisy is Jordan's way of suggesting that perhaps Daisy's reputation is not so squeaky-clean as everyone else believes. After all, if Daisy were the only sober one in a crowd of partiers, it would be easy for her to hide less-than-flattering aspects about herself.
Suddenly I wasn't thinking of Daisy and Gatsby any more but of this clean, hard, limited person who dealt in universal skepticism and who leaned back jauntily just within the circle of my arm.
In this moment, Nick reveals what he finds attractive about Jordan—not just her appearance though again, he describes her as pleasingly "jaunty" and "hard" here , but her attitude. She's skeptical without being fully cynical, and remains upbeat and witty despite her slightly pessimistic outlook. At this point in the story, Midwestern Nick probably still finds this exciting and attractive, though of course by the end he realizes that her attitude makes it hard for her to truly empathize with others, like Myrtle.
In contrast to Daisy who says just before this, rather despairingly, "What will we do today, and then tomorrow, and for the next thirty years? As we'll discuss later, perhaps since she's still unmarried her life still has a freedom Daisy's does not, as well as the possibility to start over.
While she's not exactly a starry-eyed optimist, Jordan does show resilience and an ability to start things over and move on. This allows her to escape the tragedy at the end relatively unscathed. It also fits how Jordan doesn't seem to let herself get too attached to people or places, which is why she's surprised by how much she felt for Nick.
I don't give a damn about you now but it was a new experience for me and I felt a little dizzy for a while. Jordan doesn't frequently showcase her emotions or show much vulnerability, so this moment is striking because we see that she did really care for Nick to at least some extent. Notice that she couches her confession with a pretty sassy remark "I don't give a damn about you now" which feels hollow when you realize that being "thrown over" by Nick made her feel dizzy—sad, surprised, shaken—for a while.
Jordan, like Tom, is usually roped into essay topics to be compared with Daisy the way Tom is often contrasted with Gatsby or sometimes George , or to make a larger argument about the role of women more generally. Since Jordan isn't as major of a character as Daisy, Gatsby, or even Tom, it's rare to get a standalone essay just about Jordan. To read some excellent detailed analysis of how to compare Jordan to Myrtle or Daisy, check out our article on comparing and contrasting the novel's characters.
Make sure to move beyond the obvious when writing about Jordan —yes, she has a job while Daisy and Myrtle are both married, but what else makes her stand out? Pay special attention to how Jordan is described versus Daisy, Jordan's dialogue, and Jordan's focus—it's clear that Jordan is often focused outward, observing other characters and their interactions, while Daisy tends to be turned inward, with her own emotions.
Despite the progress in women's rights made in the early twentieth century, including the right to vote won in , most women, especially wealthy women, were expected to marry, have children, and stay at home. Daisy sticks to this prescribed societal role by marrying and having a child. But Jordan plays golf professionally, "runs around the country" and doesn't seem to be in a hurry to marry 1. In short, on the surface, it appears that Daisy is a traditionalist while Jordan is expanding the possibilities of a woman's life.
However, Daisy and Jordan aren't exactly a straightforward housewife and career woman duo. First of all, Daisy is quite removed from her role as a mother, since her daughter Pammy is mostly raised by a maid.
She also seriously contemplates leaving Tom during the novel. Meanwhile, Jordan tells Nick at the end of the novel she's engaged. Whether or not this is true, it suggests that Jordan will certainly get married one day, and that her current golf career is just a temporary diversion, not a permanent independent lifestyle. Indeed, both Daisy and Jordan are also both at the mercy of their families : Daisy derives all of her wealth and power from Tom, while Jordan is beholden to her old aunt for money.
They don't actually have much control over their own wealth and would lose everything if they went too far out of line. So while Daisy and Jordan both typify a very showy lifestyle that looks liberated—being "flappers," having sex, drinking in public which before the s was seen as a highly indecent thing for a woman to do , playing golf professionally in Jordan's case—they in fact are still thoroughly constrained by the limited options women had in the s in terms of making their own lives.
Jordan briefly narrates in Chapter 4. How is Jordan's narration different from Nick's? Why rely on her narration at all? What would the novel be like from her point of view? Jordan's narration is definitely distinct from Nick's. Her diction is a bit sharper and she has more blatantly judgmental asides , calling Daisy "drunk as a monkey" 4.
She also uses more vivid imagery: the red, white, and blue banners on the houses flapping "tut-tut-tut-tut" in a "disapproving way" 4. Her choice of words is a pretty good insight into her character and how sharply observant she is!
So why is there a section narrated by Jordan at all? Perhaps Nick leans on Jordan because he feels unqualified to talk about Daisy's past. After all, aside from their conversation in Chapter 1, Nick doesn't have close conversations with Daisy.
But since Nick gets to know Gatsby through several close conversations, he feels comfortable telling about Gatsby's past. You also get the sense he's washing his hands of whatever Jordan reveals about Daisy. He doesn't fully trust in the details or really care about Daisy's story, using it only as a means of understanding Gatsby.
It's also notable that Nick uses Michealis's point of view to talk about the aftermath of Myrtle's death, which in a similar manner suggests he feels less connected to the Wilsons than he does to Gatsby. The novel from Jordan's point of view would likely be much less sentimental when it comes to Gatsby. Nick obviously idealizes him by the end while Jordan doesn't seem to see him as anything more than a source of fun and intrigue.
We would also likely get a much better sense of Daisy's motivations and thought process throughout the novel, something we barely get access to with Nick's narration. Daisy's motto: if you don't have anything nice to say, come and sit by me. Extra Advice: Want to get into the best college you can? Read our famous guide on how to get into Harvard, the Ivy League, and your top choice college. In this guide, you'll learn:. Even if you're not actually interested in Ivy League schools, you'll still learn something fundamental about how to apply to college.
Read our top college admissions guide today. These are questions that many students have about Jordan after reading Gatsby for the first time. These are points that don't come up as often in essay topics or study guides, so give them a look if you're still wondering about Jordan's feelings and motivations!
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