What Are The Three Women In The Great Gatsby

Francis Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby explores the theme of flawed romance through the actions and motivations of three women: Jordan Baker, Myrtle Wilson, and Daisy Buchanan. Every intimate relationship involving these women is rife with ulterior motives; Jordan desires control, Myrtle pursues affluence, and Daisy holds vested interest in maintaining her socioeconomic class. Through manipulation of the men in their lives, the three women successfully achieve their goals—often to the detriment of their lovers. Though each of the women use different methods to exploit their romantic interests, all desire the same end result: power. Jordan Baker, competitive in nature, hungers for success and prestige. In romance, Jordan seeks power and control, maintaining an air of superiority over lovers that she deems inferior. To remain secure in her own intelligence and dominate in a relationship, she “instinctively avoided clever shrewd men,” (59) because “she wasn’t able to endure being a disadvantage” (59). Jordan enjoys her status and the attention from the many men that “she could have married at a nod of her head” (166). This need for power in love becomes apparent in Jordan’s relationship

To satisfy his own desires, Tom holds an affair with the woman in exchange for Myrtle’s unabashed use of his wealth and resources. “Tom is the first sweetie she’s ever had” (39) primarily because he can provide financially; any whim of Myrtle’s is readily bankrolled by the Buchanan pocketbook. Myrtle falls in love with Tom’s money and the power behind it, wishing to marry him to secure her social status and newfound “impressive hauteur” (35). However, Tom sees her only as a brief object of pleasure, and does not reciprocate the desire to wed, going so far as to lie that his wife Daisy “is a Catholic and they don’t believe in divorce”