"Alone in Unquiet Darkness": The Women of Gatsby

The women of Gatsby are (or the recurring ones, at least) Daisy, Jordan, and Myrtle. Daisy is a character that acts innocent, sheltered. She usually wears white, which reflects her character as innocent and carefree, she is quite aware of Tom's relationship with Myrtle and perhaps her relationship with Gatsby is a naive retaliation against Tom. At the end of the book, she kills Myrtle and appears to be unfazed by that fact. Nick on Tom and Daisy:

"They were careless people, Tom and Daisy -- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made" (188).

Her innocence and naivity are also reflected when she cries into Gatsby's many colored shirts.

Jordan, Tom and Daisy's friend, forms a "relationship" with Nick. She is a golfer, who had cheated at her tournament. She is the one that tells Nick of Tom's mistress in New York. She seems to be slightly nosy, (though its not something that is in-your-face) and she gossips. She was the one who had first seen Daisy and Gatsby together before she had even known either one. Towards the end of the book Jordan makes it clear that she might have been in love, but she had lost interest in Nick. She thought they were the same, but later found out that they weren't.

Myrtle is Tom's mistress from New York. She treats her husband as 'dead' and 'undesirable'. She thinks that Tom is in love with her, but unfortunately fails to realize Tom's revelation of making a mistake after his relationship with Daisy is almost derailed by Gatsby. She is killed towards the end of the book and makes very little impact in the main story line behind Gatsby (aside from being Tom's little fling).