The first significant introduction we see in Chapter One
is when Nick tells us of a visit ot the house of Tom Buchanan, an acquaintance from Yale
University, and his wife, Daisy, Nick's second cousin once removed. Buchanan is
physically powerful and extremely wealthy. Nick also meets Daisy's friend, Jordan Baker,
who is a golfer.
Tom makes racist comments, drawing support
for his views from a recently published book. Jordan tells Nick that Tom is having an
affair, and that this mistress is responsible for a phone call during
dinner.
Tom is clearly presented as an arrogant and
powerful man:
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.
His
body has "enormous power" and is described as a "cruel body." Certainly his comments
about racism and the fact that he has a mistress shows that he is a chauvinistic and
arrogant individual.
The two women, Jordan and Daisy, are
described in terms that present them as women that are to be viewed and looked at. Both
seem to want to present themselves as beautiful and their looks have an element of
pretension:
They were both in white, and their dresses were
rippling and fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight
around the house.
They also
have little to contribute in terms of meaningful conversation, interspersing what
conversation there is with comments like "I'm stiff!" and "How gorgeous!" It is clear
that in this world women are objects and treated as such.
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