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Nick Carraway and Jordan (Nick's Character Traits (Judgemental (Father…
Nick Carraway and Jordan
Jordan's Relationship
Nick
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Tom and Daisy want them to get married. (18, 19)
"'I hate careless people. That's why I like you.'" (58). #
Tom
"Tom and Miss Baker sat at either end of the long couch and she read aloud to him from The Saturday Evening Post" (17).
Gatsby
"'Miss baker?' he inquired. 'I beg your pardon, but Mr. Gatsby would like to speak to you alone.'" (50).
"He was saying some last word to her, but the eagerness in his manner tightened abruptly into formality as several people approached him to say good-by" (52).
"'How long were we in there?' 'Why, about an hour.' 'It was... simply amazing,' she repeated abstractedly" (52).
Aunt
We know that Jordan has an Aunt who controls her money which probably implies that she will inherit a large amount of money but doesn't have access to it yet.
Jordan's Character Traits 
Shy, timid quiet, proper
"... completely motionless, and with her chin raised a little, as if she were balancing something on it which was quite likely to fall. If she saw me out of the corner of her eyes she gave no hint of it" (8).
"... Miss Baker's lips fluttered, she nodded at me almost imperceptibly, and then quickly tipped her head back again" (9).
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"-the words, murmurous and uninflected, running together in a soothing tune" (17).
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"'Good night,' she said softly" (18).
Body Language
"...erect carriage, which she accentuated by throwing her body backward at the shoulders..." (11). Femininity and a little seductive. #
"Her body asserted itself with a restless movement of her knee, and she stood up" (18).
"... came out of the house and stood at the head of the marble steps, leaning a little backward and looking with contemptuous interest down into the garden" (42).
Nosy
"... and said 'Sh!' in a warning voice. A subdued impassioned murmur was audible in the room beyond, and Miss Baker leaned forward unashamed, trying to hear... 'Don't talk. I want to hear what happens' (14).
"'The rumor is,' whispered Jordan, 'that that's Tom's girl on the telephone.'" (116). Stirs up rumors and trouble.
Hobbies
"That was for the golf tournament. She had lost in the finals the week before" (43). She is athletic.
Important
"'You don't know who we are,' said one of the girls in yellow, 'but we met you here about a month ago.'" (43). Expected that she doesn't know who they are. Gives her a sense of importance and celebritory.
Suspicious/Scandalous
"When we were on a house-party together up in Warwick, she left a borrowed car out in the rain with the top down, and then lied about it - and suddenly I remembered the story about her that had eluded me that night at Daisy's. At her first big golf tournament there was a row that nearly reached the newspapers - a suggestion that she had moved her ball from a bad lie in the semi-final round. The thing approached the proportions of a scandal - then died away (57).
"Jordan Baker instinctively avoided clever, shrewd men" (57).
Negative ones
"She was incurably dishonest. She wasn't able to endure being at a disadvantage and, given this unwillingness, I suppose she had begun dealing in subterfuges when she was very young in order to keep that cool, insolent smile turned to the world and yet satisfy the demands of her hard, jaunty body" (58).
Nick's Character Traits
Judgemental
Father told him "Whenever you feel like criticizing any one, just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had"(1).
"I'm inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores" (1).
"He had changed since his New Haven years. Now he was a sturdy straw-haired man of thirty with a rather hard mouth and a supercilious manner. Two shining arrogant eyes had established dominance over his face and gave him the appearance of always leaning aggressively forward... a cruel body" (7). Judging Tom Buchanan
"The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg are blue and gigantic - their retinas are one yard high" (23). Exaggeration, hyperbole.
"The apartment was on the top floor - a small living-room, a small dining-room, a small bedroom, and a bath The living-room was crowded to the doors with a set of tapes-tried furniture entirely too large for it..." (29).
"She came in with such a proprietary haste, and looked around so possessively at the furniture that I wondered if she lived here" (30).
"We were sitting at a table with a man of about my age and a rowdy little girl, who gave way upon the slightest provocation to uncontrollable laughter" (47).
"...I was looking at an elegant young roughneck, a year or two over thirty, whose elaborate formality of speech just missed being absurd" (48). Of course after his admiration, it wouldn't be Nick if he didn't make a negative comment.
"I had expected that Mr. Gatsby would be a florid and corpulent person in his middle years" (48). Made assumptions/judgements before he even met him.
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"... the woman next to me perspired delicately for a while into her white shirtwaist, and then, as her newspaper dampened under her fingers, lapsed despairingly into deep heat with a desolate cry. Her pocket - book slapped to the floor" (114). #
Context
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Live in West Egg which is the less fashionable of the two. House is on the very tip between two big houses that rented $12,000 - $15,000 a year.
Irresponsible
"I had a dog - at least I had him for a few days before he ran away" (3,4)
"... and an old DOdge and a Finnish woman, who made my bed and cooked breafast..." (4)
Literate
"I was rather literary in college - one year I wrote a series of very solemn and obvious editorials for the Yale News" (4).
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Observant
"I enjoyed looking at her (Jordan). She was a slender, small-breasted girl, with an erect carriage, which she accentuated by throwing her body backward at the shoulders like a young cadet. Her gray sun-strained eyes looked back at me with polite reciprocal curiosity out of a wan ,charming, discontented face" (11).
"I noticed that she wore her evening-dress, all her dresses, like sports clothes - there was a jauntiness about her movements as if she had first learned to walk upon golf courses on clean, crisp mornings" (50).
Fright
"'I'm scared of him (Gatsby). I'd hate to have him get anything on me" (32). #
Sexuality
"Taking out my handkerchief I wiped from his (Mr. McKee) cheek the remains of the spot of dried lather that had worried me all the afternoon" (36).
"... I was standing beside his bed and he was sitting up between the sheets, clad in his underwear, with a great portfolio in his hands" (38).
Disrespected
"'... Tell him Mr. Carraway came over.' 'Who?' he demanded rudely. 'Carraway.' 'Carraway. All right, I'll tell him.' Abruptly he slammed the door" (113). Gatsby replaced his servants a week before.
Nick's Relationships
Gatsby
Respect: First introduced him "Only Gatsby, the man who gives his name to this book..." (2). Refers to him by last name giving him authority and respect.
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First face-to-face impression: "He smiled understandingly — much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced — or seemed to face — the whole external world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just so far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey" (48). Contrasts as Nick usually makes snarky comments #
"His tanned skin was drawn attractively tight on his face and his short hair looked as though it were trimmed every day. I could see nothing sinister about him. I wondered if the fact that he was not drinking helped to set him off from his guests, for it seemed to me that he grew more correct as the fraternal hilarity increased" (50). Admiration of Gatsby.
"Rather ashamed that on m first appearance I had stayed so late, I joined the last of Gatsby's guests, who were clustered around him... He smiled - and suddenly there seemed to be a pleasant significance in having been among the last to go" (53).
Family
Thinks highly of his family "My family have been prominent, well-to-do people in this Middle Western city for three generations" (3). Not humble about it
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Jordan: Has an interesting relationship as they are not married and do not have an affair. Helps to highlight Daisy and Gatsby's relationship where a poorer man wants a wealthier girl and also highlights Tom and Myrtle's relationship as Nick is also physically attracted to Jordan aswell.
"For a while I lost sight of Jordan Baker, and then in mid-summer I found her again. At first I was flattered to go places with her, because she was a golf champion, and everyone knew her name. Then it was something more. I wasn't actually in love, but I felt a sort of tender curiosity" (57). Romance.
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"-most affectations conceal something eventually, even though they don't in the beginning - and one day I found what it was... The incident and the name had remained together in my mind" (57). #
"I enjoyed looking at her. She was a slender, small-breasted girl, with an erect carriage which she accentuated by throwing her body backward at the shoulders like a young cadet. Her grey sun-strained eyes looked back at me with polite reciprocal curiosity out of a wan, charming discontented face. It occurred to me now that I had seen her, or a picture of her, somewhere before" (11). Immediate attraction to Jordan. # #
"Her grey, sun-strained eyes stared straight ahead, but she had deliberately shifted our relations, and for a moment I thought I loved her" (58).
"It was dark now, and as we dipped under a little bridge I put my arm around Jordan's golden shoulder and drew her toward me and asked her to dinner" (79).
"I was in New York, trotting around with Jordan and trying to ingratiate myself with her seile aunt..." (101). Spending time with Jordan.
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