Tom Buchanan Character Analysis Essay

Tom Buchanan can be known as one of those characters you either hate or you love. Whether you love his wealth and successes or loathe how violent he is capable of being through his words and his actions. His actions toward himself and others spark up a lot of conversation about how we feel about this character through his unique personality. In this situation, Tom Buchanan can reasonably be considered the ultimate villain because his overall personality portrays him as being arrogant, selfish, and careless towards other people. Right from the start, we get to experience what Tom’s life is like. Once Nick Carraway arrives at the Buchanan’s mansion, Tom is very eager to show off his home; he is extremely proud of his wealth and successes overall.
But that’s what adds to his overall villainy, being selfish in a way in which he puts himself first over other people and thinks much too highly of himself. This has a lasting, troubling effect on other characters throughout the novel, for they get tangled up in a mess they could have avoided if it weren’t for Tom’s arrogance and selfishness. In addition, Tom exemplifies these detrimental traits through a conversation that took place between Daisy and Nick. In The Great Gatsby, Daisy and Nick are walking together after dinner at the Buchanan mansion. Daisy mentions things about Tom and her child and says: “It’ll show you how I’ve gotten to feel about--things. Well, she was less than an hour old and Tom was God knows where. I woke up out of the ether with an utterly abandoned feeling…”(Fitzgerald 16-17) In this scene, Daisy is describing her experience when she had her baby girl, Pammy, and says that her own husband, Tom, wasn’t even there. For all we know, he could have been with Myrtle. Because of his lack of appearance at his own daughter’s birth, he is indeed selfish and narcissistic. He is not there to support Daisy; he is only wrapped up in his own little