Theme of Love and Marriage

He gave her a string of pearls . . . I was a bridesmaid. . . . She...pulled out the . . . pearls . . . "Take 'em down-stairs and give 'em back to whoever they belong to. Tell 'em all Daisy's change' her mine. Say: 'Daisy's change' her mind!'

Daisy weds Tom for his wealth and social standing. Jordan Baker plays a rather unimportant role in the novel, but in this moment her character becomes important as a window into Daisy's thoughts and motivations. Like Nick, Jordan's role as a character is primarily to observe and narrate the actions of Gatsby, Daisy, and Tom.

'I married him because I thought he was a gentleman,' she said finally. 'I thought he knew something about breeding, but he wasn't fit to lick my shoe.'

Indicates the entanglement of love and money. The particular quote is both satiric and sad, because the Wilsons are so much poorer than anyone else in the novel.

For a while I lost sight of Jordan Baker, and then in midsummer I found her again . . . . I wasn't actually in love, but I felt a sort of tender curiosity.

Shallowness of love and relationships in the novel

He talked a lot about the past, and I gathered that he wanted to recover something, some idea of himself perhaps, that had gone into loving Daisy.

The younger Gatsby may have imagined a version of love that transcends money, whereas the older Gatsby recognises the impossibility of a marriage insulated from the reality of the surrounding world.

Neither of them can stand the person they're married to.... What I say is, why go on living with them if they can't stand them? If I was them I'd get a divorce and get married to each other right away.

Tom's feelings for Myrtle are far less intense than he has led her to believe and that social pressure prevents him from ever leaving Daisy, who comes from a similar upper-class background.