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Jordan Baker In The Great Gatsby

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Jordan Baker, a attractive, young, and flirtatious female golfer, can best be described as the color yellow. Yellow has many interpretations, and such negative ones like, “dishonesty, cowardism,...and egoism” (Grok) characterize Jordan. In The Great Gatsby, the narrator, Nick, states that “She is incurably dishonest. She wasn’t able to endure being at a disadvantage” (58). Just moments before in the novel, Nick remembers a scandal that Jordan was deeply involved in. She had cheated in a golf tournament and later denied it, simply because she it necessary to win. Jordan also has “autumn-leaf yellow hair” (17) which could be seen as an intentional trait made by Fitzgerald to hint at her personality. Jordan lied about her tournament, which is cowardly, because she could not accept defeat. Ms. Baker is a yellow character, dangerous, a fabricator, and careless. …show more content…
Tom Buchanan is a masculine character in both his appearance and actions, hence his body is depicted as one “capable of enormous leverage-a cruel body” (7). In chapter II, Tom breaks his mistress’s nose because she had threatened his manhood by shouting Daisy’s name. Immediately after he punches her, blood is everywhere, cruel, dark, flowing blood. Punching and shouting are seen as masculine ways to release anger, and that is exactly what Tom does. He personifies the title of “Alpha Male” in the way that he speaks to women and the males perceived as “weaker” than

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