The Chosen and the Beautiful

Both Nghi Vo’s and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s texts explore the ways in which certain identities are made into The Other, a title that operates to exclude people within a particular set of identity norms. While the boundaries between who counts as an Other and the norm are often depicted as deeply entrenched and inherent, Vo’s novel unpacks a variety of ways that such boundaries are not only fluid, but also tools weaponized for social and political power. Jordan is the primary example of how The Other functions as an outsider.

While Jordan’s adopted family spins the myth that she is a Louisville Baker, who was adopted by Miss Eliza Baker from Tonkin as an irresistible orphan child, Jordan’s identity is more complex. Her Asiatic appearance makes it difficult for her to blend in with the elite society she is raised in and have a social standing that is secure as Daisy’s. This is evident in how white people casually exoticize and objectify her, referring to her as Daisy’s “little China doll” (219), thereby implying that she performs the stereotypical role of the servile Oriental, who answers to white power. Daisy’s treatment of Jordan swings from that of intimate insider, to useful outsider with a link to an underworld of crime when she needs it—for example, it is Jordan that she calls upon when she needs an illegal abortion, knowing that her friend’s social exclusion furnishes associations with anonymous actors who can help her in secret.