Recklessness In The Great Gatsby Essay

In “The Great Gatsby” Tom Buchanan had one of the despising personalities out of all the characters. Tom’s personality was a rude, impatient, and cruel type at the beginning. There were no reasons for him to act like that. At the very beginning Tom is one of the first characters that were introduced. His first impressions were that he always had to be in command or be the dominant one. “ Tom who had been hovering restlessly about the room, stopped and rested his hand on my shoulder” (Fitzgerald 10) Even though he is a tall, muscular and broad man he sure does his research and can’t stand the fact that other races can become more superior. “Civilization’s going to pieces,” broke out Tom violently. “It’s up to us, who are the dominant race, to watch out or these other races will have control of things” (Fitzgerald 12-13) Tom still succeeds to being more dominant and controlling by throwing Nick out the car. “He jumped to his feet and, taking hold of my elbow, literally forced me out the car.” “Were getting off,” he insisted. “I want you to meet my girl.”(Fitzgerald 24) Being tall, muscular and with a bad personality, Tom couldn’t have treated Mrs. Wilson worse by hitting her in the nose and making her bleed. “Tom Buchanan broke her nose with his open hand.” (Fitzgerald 37) By proceeding to very end of the book Tom still shows no signs of changing nor does he plan to. For instance Tom was going to sell his car to a garage owner, but decided to change his mind angrily and kept the car. “ The voice in the hall rose high with annoyance: “Very well, then, I won’t sell you the car at all . . . I’m under no obligations to you at all . . . and as for your bothering me about it at lunch time, I won’t stand at all!” (Fitzgerald 116) Even though Tom care about something’s he sure doesn’t care about his old friend Walter Chase since he just left him to rot. “I guess your friend Walter Chase wasn’t too proud

Does Tom Buchanan actually bestow the amount of power that he’s portrayed to have? In “The Great Gatsby”, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tom Buchanan is made to be seen as a domineering character. When viewing Tom’s character through the social power lens, it’ll be able to expose parts of this book where Tom struggles to keep the amount of power he currently has, from his wealth and social ranking, due to his growing insecurities. Throughout this book, Tom believes he obtains a higher degree of power over everyone else and that only his point of view matters because of his extravagant life. Although Tom does attain a substantial amount of power over many of the other characters in this book, it doesn’t mean he’ll be able to hold onto it.

Let’s begin by talking about how Tom Buchanan only cares about others stature rather than the people themselves. Tom can be seen judging others on how they stand in society rather than how they are as people. This is evident when Nick is

Themes of hope, success, and wealth overpower The Great Gatsby, leaving the reader with a new way to look at the roaring twenties, showing that not everything was good in this era. F. Scott Fitzgerald creates the characters in this book to live and recreate past memories and relationships. This was evident with Gatsby and Daisy’s relationship, Tom and Daisy’s struggling marriage, and Gatsby expecting so much of Daisy and wanting her to be the person she once was. The theme of this novel is to acknowledge the past, but do not recreate and live in the past because then you will not be living in the present, taking advantage of new opportunities.

He too abandons his morals; illegally earning the money that he believes will win back the heart of his lost love Daisy. When they had a love affair long ago, she wouldn't marry him because of his financial standing. The details of his business are sketchy, when asked he usually ignores the question. Tom though, after some investigating finds the true nature of his profession.

According to Nick, Tom Buchanan is a “sturdy, straw-haired man of thirty with a rather hard mouth and a supercilious manner” (13). Tom shows careless and arrogance multiple times

Finally, both Tom and Daisy show carelessness through being foolish. Tom Buchanan exhibits foolishness by physically harming Daisy. "We all looked. The knuckle was black and blue.

Tom Buchanan is one of the many colourful, intriguing and enigmatic characters of the masterpiece “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald. He is the antagonist of the novel and rightly so. He is racist, a hypocrite, an immoral cheater, a short-tempered brute and misogynistic. Tom is also part of an old and out dated sort of world that is being swamped all-round the edges by a new and better society. That is the reason why he is acting so tough and also why he hates Jay Gatsby so much, it is because he is afraid, afraid that the world that he knows and all the old-fashioned values of love, wealth and masculinity will come crashing down on him. He dislikes Gatsby because he is part of the new generation and he got rich by a different way

Tom Buchanan, a crucial character to the events of The Great Gatsby, is how Fitzgerald presents a symbol of greed and immoral acts to the reader, a character whom is corrupted by sin and iniquity. Fitzgerald uses Tom Buchanan, a disloyal and proud character, in order to suggest some of the traits that may cause one to lose their sense of morality.

As the reader knows...nobody likes Tom Buchanan because he thinks he is above society. Nick says, “His speaking voice, a gruff husky tenor, added to the impression of fractiousness he conveyed. There was a touch of paternal contempt in it, even toward people he liked—and there were men at New Haven who had hated his guts.” (Fitzgerald, 20). This is a real harsh judging coming from Nick as he uses the word “fractiousness” which basically means that he’s unruly or irritable. This clear explain why nobody really likes him, because nobody likes an irritable person. But for Nick to say he’s so honest is a total lie. Even though he hit the nail on the head with the judgement of Tom, Nick still blatantly lied to the reader because he clearly judged Tom. Nick obviously doesn’t like Tom so he takes another shot at him by saying “He had changed since his New Haven years. Now he was a sturdy straw-haired man of thirty with a rather hard mouth and a supercilious manner. Two shining arrogant eyes had established dominance over his face and gave him the appearance of always leaning aggressively forward” (Fitzgerald, 7) Nick is basically saying that since he has money, he seems to think that he has the right to tell everyone in society what to do. But, this is when Nick starts judging. Nick makes it very clear that Tom was born into wealth and that he never worked for it at all.

“The only people you have to look out for in life are the people that don’t care about anything or anyone” (Alde). In The Great Gatsby by, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tom and Daisy are just those people that are not to be trusted. They have no regard for other’s feelings and live life without facing the consequences. Tom and Daisy show that they are careless people through their insensitive, thoughtless and selfish acts.

Through the means of characterization, Fitzgerald expresses Tom Buchanan as another immoral character. Tom is portrayed as an egotistical, hypocrite who advocates white supremacy. His hypocrisy is shown when he speaks to Gatsby, he conduct himself as a “high” class citizen but dwells as a “low” class citizen. “I picked him for a bootlegger the first time I saw him, and I wasn’t far wrong.” “What about it?” said Gatsby politely. “I guess your friend Walter Chase

“Is Tom most responsible for Gatsby’s death? Daisy? Myrtle? Gatsby himself? Give reasons why or why not each character is implicated in the murder.”

Tom Buchanan is a strong, powerful, and forceful picture of a man who cares only about himself. He first meets Gatsby in the second half of the book because Gatsby is trying to steal daisy from him. Although Tom is a powerful rich man he is also a coward. He told George “The yellow car that I was driving this afternoon wasn't mine”(Fitzgerald, 140). There were many more ways for tom to give out the information, from turning it to the police or for waiting for george to ask him. Even though Tom offers George false information, eventually leading him to Gatsby's home, he is still less culpable than others. Tom's actions were unwarranted and could have been avoided. This is because his wife was the person who tempted Gatsby first.

Tom Buchanan, Daisy?s husband, was a man from an enormously wealthy family. Nick, described Tom's physical attributes as having a "hard mouth and a supercilious manner?arrogant eyes had established dominance over his face?always leaning aggressively forward?a cruel body?his speaking voice?added to the impression of