Preview

What Does Tom Buchanan Represent In The Great Gatsby

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
445 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
What Does Tom Buchanan Represent In The Great Gatsby
Jay Gatsby, Tom Buchanan and NIck Carraway are three people with very different personalities. Jay is a modern and showy person, Tom is classy, and simple, while Nick is a humble person, and the houses of each of the characters mentioned show it. The houses of Gatsby, Tom and Nick represent their lifestyle and social position, but do not accurately represent their personality.
Throughout the book, Jay Gatsby throws a lot of parties in his huge mansion. This shows that he is very wealthy, and tries a lot to show it to Daisy, wife of Tom Buchanan. When his house is described, the setting is often a modern and fun place. This also represents his social status because whenever he throws a party, everyone in the town shows up. Nick describes his house by saying, “It
…show more content…
Nick describes his house by saying, “The lawn started at the beach and ran towards the front door for a quarter of a mile, jumping over sun-dials and brick walks and burning gardens-finally when it reached the house drifting up the side in bright vines as though from the momentum of its run”(Pg 6). Tom represents old money, as his parents were rich. Tom often acts superlicious when it comes to anything, including his relationship with Daisy where he acts like he is in charge of the relationship. This shows that his wealth does not represent his personality, because him and Gatsby are equally wealthy, but Gatsby is innocent and resourceful while Tom is arrogant and supercilious.
Nick Carraway is a character who’s house is not very big, and the reader knows this, when he says, “My house was at the very tip of the egg, only fifty yards from the Sound, and squeezed between two huge places that rented for twelve or fifteen thousand a season”(Pg 5). His house does not necessarily show his personality, because Nick is a very interesting character and his personality changes throughout the

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    In the book, “The Great Gatsby,” the characters Tom Buchanan and Jay Gatsby are more alike than they appear. They also share the same differences too and they also never loved Daisy. One of their great differences is that Gatsby is more organized and Tom is not.Tom’s great differences is that he is cheater and Gatsby is not. They have two different personalities but can relate to the same secret affairs throughout the book.…

    • 248 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Tom Buchanan was married to Daisy Buchanan, and Tom was having an affair with Myrtle Wilson- who was married to George Wilson. Jay Gatsby had always loved Daisy Buchanan, and they finally got reconnected one day after years. This reuniting was a result of Nick moving beside Gatsby, because Nick was Daisy’s cousin. Gatsby had an ostentatious house and car. Furthermore, he regularly had large parties at his mansion. Nick stated that “there was music coming from [his] neighbor’s house through the summer nights…. and on weekends his Rolls-Royce became an omnibus bearing parties to and from the city” (39). This quote gives readers the idea that Gatsby had the same parties day in and day out. There was always a crowd at Gatsby’s house, the same crowd over and over, that went to drink their worries away. Gatsby was defined as having “new money”, meaning that he did not grow up in money. That was not the case for Tom and Daisy. They lived in the “old money” side of the bay. Daisy was married to Tom for his money, mostly. In that time period, women could not divorce their husbands so Daisy was stuck with him. Moreover, Gatsby obtained his money in order to impress Daisy. In…

    • 608 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Mustang Thesis

    • 484 Words
    • 2 Pages

    You don’t just watch Mustang. You watch it slowly unfold in front of you as it pulls no punches. Mustang is an emotional juggernaut that through its simple story, and the best direction of the year makes for one of the most intense and heartbreaking experiences of the year. Mustang begins with five sisters playing a game with some boys on a beach. They return to their home only to be viciously attacked by the adults in their lives, and threats are thrown at them.…

    • 484 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the novel “The Great Gatsby” Tom Buchanan is a man who has it all. He was an all star footballer in high school, he is wealthy, and is married to a beautiful woman, Daisy. Although Tom has all of these nice things, he also has some downfalls. Tom was selfish with his women, he gets what he wants when he wants it, and he is a hypocrite. Tom Buchanan displays a significant amount of arrogance in this novel.…

    • 646 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The American Dream is something that a person can either find success or failure. The American Dream is open for interpretations. The American Dream Gatsby is chasing consist of; wealth, social acceptance, and the love of a desirable woman. Fitzgerald, in his novel The Great Gatsby, crafts a unique style of exploring the connection between Jay Gatsby and the American Dream. Tom Buchanan is man that had already gained the social status that Gatsby wanted to acquire in the novel. Mr. Gatsby desperately tries to befriend Tom Buchanan in order to gain social status and live the American Dream. Gatsby being a socially awkward person is inhibited in discovering the dream he is chasing. Finding love is another aspect of Mr. Gatsby’s dream that is never completed. His desire to marry Tom’s wife Daisy is an endless quest. Nick’s opinion of Gatsby is another factor that contributes to the unsuccessfulness of Gatsby. The American Dream is an artificial idea that cannot be achieved by Mr. Jay Gatsby because it is merely a product of the New World.…

    • 954 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Great Gatsby is a story that revolves a great deal on the exercise of power held by people within society. Tom Buchanan, one of the main antagonists in the novel, is the man who marries Daisy, Nick Carraway’s cousin. Having inherited money from his family, or “old money” Tom Buchanan resides with Daisy in East Egg, where all the other people with inherited wealth live. The narrator already knew him from before as they’d attended Yale together, but his immediate description of him in the book, depicted him as being a “sturdy” man, with a “hard mouth”, “arrogant eyes” and a body of “enormous power,” which hints at the impression Tom gives off of a smug overbearing man(Pg.9). Later Daisy describes him right…

    • 816 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    In The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby is trying to build an ideal lifestyle so that he can impress Daisy, hoping to win her heart back. He throws elaborate parties at his mansion…

    • 962 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Tom Buchanan was my character of choice because of his interesting role as both a bystander in Jay Gatsby’s relentless pursuit for Daisy and his side story arc with Myrtle. His attitude towards minority groups in the 1920’s reflects the sense of superstition wealthy whites of the time could relate to due to the strong anti-African-American sentiment that they held. The openness of his flings with other women leaves much to be desired, which makes him an extravagant man to play: rich, frisky, and quite insufferable.…

    • 561 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald strategically begins the novel by giving us insight into the narrator, Nick Carraway. After reading the first two chapters the reader has a good understanding of Nick Carraway and what his values are. The reader feels a connection to Nick, whose character is a stark contrast compared to the other characters introduced in the story. The characters in this story, specifically from East Egg, can be compared and contrasted to those from Camelot in our previous reading Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.…

    • 480 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Gatsby’s mansion is important to readers because it helps them understand Gatsby’s love for Daisy; readers see this when Gatsby invites Nick to one of his parties. One day, a chauffeur appeared at Nick’s doorstep with a note from Mr. Gatsby; Nick elucidates that it said that, “…the honor would be entirely Gatsby’s…if I would attend his “little party” that night” (Fitzgerald 45).…

    • 63 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Through Nick Carraways choice of dictation and detail, he conveys Tom Buchanan as a power-craving, dominant man. Tom is described as having various physical accomplishments, including: being one of the most powerful ends that ever played footballsturdyaggressivedominantand a body capable of enormous leverage-a cruel body. Not to mention, Toms family was extremely wealthy-which carried into his generation-and is considered a very powerful man. Despite these references to Toms strength, physically and economically, Nicks word choice depicts him as the complete opposite. When Nick sees Tom standing on the porch, he illustrates him as having a supercilious mannerarrogant eyesleaning aggressively forwardand an impression of fractiousness. All of these descriptions support the fact that Tom is actually a very weak and fake man. His supercilious mannerisms and arrogant eyes make him seem cocky and self-important, to the point of his unawareness toward how powerless he really is. Also, when he has his legs apart on the front porch, leans forward aggressively and conveys an impression of fractiousness, it is implied that he is purposely over compensating the degree, or necessity, of power he feels he should express in order to make him think that other people believe he is unquestionably powerful. The overall purpose of characterizing Tom-in the way he did-was to exemplify how much he is the ideal man. This constant judging and belittlement of the people around him makes him feel superior-and gives him a feeling of excellence over everyone, inclusively convincing himself that he is truly the ideal…

    • 265 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Great Gatsby Rough Draft

    • 936 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Nick Carraway believes in the American ideal of a self made man. But this principle stands in harsh contrast with the crime and violence he find in the East. The main link to the world of crime in the novel is Gatsby. Though Gatsby has a noble dream, to become successful to win his true love, we see him fall prey to the temptations of easy money. Nick is disgusted by the means with which Gatsby has tried to reach his dream, "Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men". Gatsby’s dream is eventually snuffed out when Daisy refuses to leave Tom. The death of Gatsby’s dream is symbolic for the death of the American dream. Gatsby illustrates how the American dream has become filled with the temptations of crime and easy money. Gatsby’s honorable intentions soon become warped by this corrupted American dream as he gains his riches through bootlegging. Once Nick learns that all of Gatsby’s wealth is attained through…

    • 936 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    On page 43, Fitzgerald writes, “There was music from my neighbor's house through the summer nights. In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and he champagne and the stars. At high tide in the afternoon I watched his guests diving from the tower of his raft, or taking the sun on the hot sand of his beach while his motorboats slid the waters of the Sound, drawing aquaplanes over cataracts of foam. On weekends his Rolls-Royce became an omnibus, bearing parties to and from the city between nine in the morning and long past midnight, while his station wagon scampered like a brisk yellow bug to meet all trains” (Fitzgerald 43). Jay Gatsby is known for having wild parties at his mansion. Most of the guests are not actually invited, they just show up and this does not seem to bother Mr. Gatsby. He likes having his house filled with guests who are enjoying themselves. Although none of his guests have ever met him, they know of him and they most definitely know of his parties. He spends all of this money on putting parties together all in hopes of Daisy stopping by. This really shows how much he is willing to sacrifice and how far he is willing to go to get Daisy back. Fitzgerald writes, “Gatsby bought that house so that Daisy would be just across the bay” (Fitzgerald 83). Jay Gatsby lives in West Egg, the wealthier part of New York. He spends an indescribable amount of…

    • 1072 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Great Gatsby

    • 496 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Gatsby, like any unaware person, mistakes happiness with money. Nick describes the house as “a factual imitation of some Hotel de Ville in Normandy, with a tower on one side, spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy, and a marble swimming pool and more than forty acres of lawn and garden” (9). By holding parties every weekend, Gatsby wants others…

    • 496 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Nick Carraway is the narrator of the Great Gatsby. He decides to go to the east to pursue a new job of being a broker. The book starts off with Nick recalling is father’s words “"Whenever you feel like criticizing any one...just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had." (Ch. 1). The quote explains that all people are different and not all are lucky enough to be fortunate from an earlier age. His father’s words represent an introduction to the main character of Jay Gatsby who created a new name for him. Gatsby made a new person of himself to show off to his past love named Daisy. Daisy ends up being Gatsby’s American Dream and we learn that the Dream is elusive and cannot be grasped just like Gatsby cannot grasp onto Daisy. Fitzgerald portrays the problem of the fall of the dream through the character of Daisy and Gatsby.…

    • 776 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays