Blog #4: Body Bio: Jordan Baker
Initial Brainstorming and Close Reading
“I looked at Miss Baker, wondering what it was she “got done.” 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 gray sun-strained eyes looked back at me with polite reciprocal curiosity out of a wan charming, discontented face.” (11)
Elegant, proud, dignified.
Holds herself up.
Slender, brown tanned skin, grey eyes, autumn yellow hair.
Carries herself nobly, almost to an exaggerated extent, so that she seems like a “cadet.”
“She got up slowly, raising her eyebrows at me in astonishment, and followed the butler toward the house. 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)
Athletic. Carries herself in an almost arrogant manner. Bounces with nobility when she walks. Kind of rigid at the same time.
Passage about Daisy: she was very envious of Daisy: rich, went around with a lot of guys. (75)
“ 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. 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.” (79)
Golden shoulder, clean, hard, limited person, dealt in universal skepticism, leaned back jauntily.
Tan, but also presents herself as noble by the way she carries herself (jauntily). Clean, hard, simple, not complicated, their relationship is based on convenience, they are just there for each other. Limited person. Means the same thing, not complicated, not deep or full of problems, kind of on the surface. An observer like Nick. At the same time, not objective, synical and arrogant. Carries herself in a noble way.
“her wan, scornful mouth smiled” (80)
“ ‘Those big movies around Fiftieth Street are cool,’ suggested Jordan. ‘I love New York on summer afternoons when every one’s away. There’s something very sensuous about it—overripe, as if all sorts of funny fruits were going to fall into your hands.’” (125)
Likes it when every one’s away, kind of likes having only a few people in the city.
Sensuous/ Overripe
-I don’t really know what to think about that. Interesting passage…to be explored in the future. I don’t really understand what it says about her and her character.
“It’s a swell suite,” whispered Jordan respectfully, and every one laughed. (126)
Not really arrogant around people of higher class, or at least, not in this one example. Kind of shows that she is not of Daisy and Tom’s class, because she doesn’t take it for granted.
“ It was Jordan Baker; she often called me up at this hour because the uncertainty of her own movements between hotels and clubs and private houses made her hard to find any other way. Usually her voice came over the wire as something fresh and cool, as if a divot from a green golf-links had come sailing in at the office window, but this morning it seemed harsh and dry.
…We talked like that for a while, and then abruptly we weren’t talking any longer. I don’t know which of us hung up with a sharp click, but I know I didn’t care.” (154-155)
End of relationship b/w Jordan and Nick, pretty much.
She moved around a lot.
Usually had a cool, fresh voice.
“I saw Jordan Baker and talked over and around what had happened to us together, and what had happened afterward to me, and she lay perfectly still, listening, in a big chair.
She was dressed to play golf and I remember thinking she looked like a good illustration, her chin raised a little jauntily, her hair the color of an autumn leaf, her face the same brown tint as the fingerless glove on her knee. When I had finished she told me without comment that she was engaged to another man. I doubted that,
…
‘Nevertheless you did throw me over,’ said Jordan suddenly. ‘You threw me over on the telephone. 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.’
We shook hands.
‘Oh, and do you remember’—she added—‘a conversation we had once about driving a car?’
…
‘You said a bad driver was only safe until she met another bad driver? Well, I met another bad driver, didn’t I? I mean it was careless of me to make such a wrong guess. I thought you were rather an honest, straightforward person. I thought it was your secret pride.’” (177)
She lay perfectly still. Chin raised jauntily. She clearly doesn’t want Nick to know that he hurt her, because that would make her feel weak, and she almost wants to make Nick helpless, by telling him that she is engaged to another man.
Significance of conversation about driving a car?
She still remembers it, but Nick has forgotten.
She admits that she is a bad “driver”, which can almost be extended to her admitting to being a bad person. She moves around a lot, is somewhat arrogant, from her physical descriptions, she lies, and cheats, but it gets covered up because she has a lot of connections. She is of a pretty low class, and her only permanent dwelling is her aunt’s house, but she stays with her friends around the country.
