The only completely stationary object in the room was an enormous 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. I must have stood for a few moments listening to the whip and snap of the curtains and the groan of a picture on the wall. Then there was a boom as Tom Buchanan shut the rear windows and the caught wind died out about the room, and the curtains and the rugs and the two young women ballooned slowly to the floor.
– F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Great Gatsby. Chapter 1, description of Daisy Buchanan and Jordan Baker. The two are so lightweight that they appear to be floating, the imagery suggests that the characters live restless, dissatisfied and hollow lives. They dress in white, symbol of purity, but that may be seen as ironic because of their own corruption. The tranquility of the scene is disrupted by Tom Buchanan who abruptly shuts the windows with a ‘boom’, suggesting trouble in paradise and Tom’s violent nature.