normous couch on which two young women were buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon. 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."
White traditionally symbolizes purity, and there is no doubt that Fitzgerald wants to underscore the ironic disparity between the ostensible purity of Daisy and Jordan and their actual corruption. But Fitzgerald is not content with this obvious and facile symbolism. White, in this early appearance in the novel, is strongly associated with airiness, buoyancy, levitation. One is reminded of the statement in Chapter VI that for Gatsby "the rock of the world was founded securely on a fairy's wing." Daisy and Jordan seem about to float off into the air because they are-to both Gatsby and Nick-a bit unreal, like fairies (Daisy's maiden name is Fay); and they are in white because, as we learn in Chapter VII, to wear white is to be "an absolute little dream":
ACHIEVEMENT
[Daisy's] face bent into the single wrinkle o...