rality. Jordan admits to her on reckless behavior when she and Nick have a conversation about her driving ability. He tells her she is a bad driver, and if she is not going to be careful, she just should not drive. Jordan says “I am careful,” but Nick disputes this fact. When confronted again, Jordan says that other people are careful and it would take two people to make a wreck. Nick asks her what she will do if she ever encounters a driver as bad as herself, and she answers, “I hope I never will. I hate careless people” (Fitzgerald 63). Jordan knows she is a careless person but does not make the necessary changes in her life so that she might lose the title, despite the fact that she says she hates careless people. In The Great Gatsby, women in general are portrayed as puerile annoyances. At Gatsby’s parties, the women are the ones who end up hopelessly drunk; they make fools of themselves, swimming in fountains and tearing their clothes. Nick listens as two drunken women bicker amongst themselves. Miss Baedecker, one of the women, apparently was so intoxicated that her head had to be stuck in a pool to revive her. She says, “anything I hate is to get my head stuck in a pool” (Fitzgerald 113). These irresponsible actions portray the women as incapable of caring for themselves, confirming that they are childish and in need of supervision in order to behave. In addition to being annoyances to the men in the novel, the women are objects. Tom cheats on his wife over and over again and Nick admits he does not love Jordan, but he stays with her because he is bored. Furthermore, women are constantly referred to as “girls”: “men and girls” (43), “rowdy little girl” (51), “four girls” (67), “the girl addressed” (112), “radiant young girl” (115). All the women in the novel are grown except Daisy’s daughter, so...
