Similarities Between Tom And Buchanan In The Great Gatsby

“The smaller the mind, the greater the conceit,” (Aesop). Society admires people who have morals but sometimes this morality is clouded by a person’s wealth or popularity. Morality is a sense of wellbeing and knowing the differences between what is right and what is wrong. People attain their morality through being confident, being concerned about others, and caring about the world and everything in it. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Tom Buchanan is perceived as the least moral by being conceited and having a passion to pursue this vulgar trait.

The American Dream, a long standing ideal embodies the hope that one can achieve financial success, political power, and everlasting love through dedication and hard work. During the Roaring 20s, people in America put up facades to mask who they truly were. In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald conveys that the American Dream is simply an illusion, that is idealist and unreal. In the novel, Gatsby, a wealthy socialite pursues his dream, Daisy. In the process of pursuing Daisy, Gatsby betrays his morals and destroys himself. Through the eyes of the narrator, Nick,

Being wealthy is one of the things that Tom and Gatsby have in common. For both of them, maintaining a high social status is a priority. They strive to be financially successful. Tom went to a wealthy school and he flaunts his money with expensive sports cars. Gatsby, on the other hand, shows his need for wealth when he quits

Tom believes that wealth is everything and that would be true in his case and anyone else who lived in that world at that time. Tom is nothing without his vast wealth. He would not have a beautiful wife like Daisy, he would not have the high socio-status that he enjoys now, he would never be able to afford that big villa and he could never have started an affair with anyone. Tom never worked for his wealth, he never did. Instead he was born into a very old but wealthy family and inherited all the money once his parents died. Nick says, “His Family were enormously wealthy…” This was the common way for all the wealthy, elite class people to get their money in the 1920s. After the Great War there was a new group of wealthy socialites that came flooding in all around America. Gatsby and Jordan Baker are

It’s a common misconception that money is equal to happiness, and Daisy is a sad, bored woman, afraid of the future. She is selfish and self centered, caring so much for the wealth that she believes will make her happy that in Chapter 7 her voice is said to be “full of money” (pg #). All the worse, when she kills Myrtle, she feels no remorse whatsoever, as she is incapable of caring for anyone but herself. Gatsby cannot see any of her bad qualities. He simply sees a beautiful young woman that he thinks he deserves. In chapter 8, Nick says that “It excited [Gatsby], too, that many men had already loved Daisy - it increased her value in his eyes.”(pg#). Gatsby is blinded by his desire for Daisy, fueled by the wants of other men, that he sees nothing bad about her. Daisy loved Tom and Gatsby equally and for the same reason: Their wealth. With Gatsby dead Daisy returns to Tom not even shaken by his death, and just as nick says they would do, they retreat from the chaos they cause into their money when they move away.

In The Great Gatsby, the American Dream, is, in fact, unattainable. For Gatsby, his dream is to erase the past five years of his life and to love Daisy again and to have her love him. But, this is impossible for one cannot simply go back in time and change what might have been. Gatsby finds himself working to reach his goal by indulging in ludicrous material goods and contriving a way to make Daisy fall for him. In Tom Buchanan’s case, his dream is to control. He wants for both Daisy and his mistress, Myrtle, to love him and to be fine with an affair. This dream is also unattainable because everyone loses in this situation. In the end, Myrtle is killed, and so is Tom’s destination. For Nick Carraway, he wants to start over. He wants to find himself, run away from rumors and from his family and commence a new life. He gets caught up in the childish antics of Gatsby and Daisy and Tom and loses who he is instead of discovering his true meaning. When all is said and done, Nick packs up and moves back West. It’s clear that F. Scott Fitzgerald is cynical towards the idea of the American Dream and uses The Great Gatsby as his way of expressing his views.

The American Dream is described as a get rich fast scheme.This fits Daisy perfectly because she knew Gatsby long before she knew Tom. Daisy came from money unlike Gatsby and she felt that she couldn’t marry a poor person because she wouldn’t remain happy and successful so she decided to marry Tom who was very rich. “Her face sad and lovely with bright eyes and a bright passionate mouth.” This quote describes her perfectly and represents both the American Dream and the American Nightmare because her unhappiness shows, but the description shows her beauty. Daisy also can’t let go of her idea of the American Dream. “The danger is, like Gatsby, she carries the well forgotten dreams from age to age.” This shows Daisy needs to carry on with her happy perfect life because she has money. She can’t take full responsibility when she kills Myrtle so she leaves Gatsby for her husband. Daisy also doesn’t go to Gatsby's funeral because it would of been dream she shared with Gatsby, but with no evidence Daisy can keep living her life with money for her happiness and

The idea of American Dream as presented by F. Scott Fitzgerald in the Great Gatsby novel involves rising from poverty or rags to richness and wealthy. The American Dream exemplifies that elements such as race, gender, and ethnicity are valueless as they do not influence the ability of an individual to rise to power and richness. This American Dream makes the assumption that concepts such as xenophobia are non-existent in America a concept that is not true and shows vagueness of the American Dream. In his novel, F. Scott Fitzgerald uses the Great Gatsby to demonstrate the overall idea of living the American dream. Gatsby leaves his small village of farmers and manages to work his way up the ladder although some of the money he uses to climb the ladder is associated with crime “He was a son of God and he must be about His Father's Business, the service of a vast, vulgar and meretricious beauty” (Fitzgerald 6.7). This phrase shows that Gatsby wasn’t meant for a life similar to that of his father but rather destined for greatness. However, his dream his short-lived and he doesn’t make it to the top as Daisy who is a symbol of his wealthy rejects her and a series of events transpire that result in his death before he could live his American Dream alongside everyone else who was working up the ladder to live the American Dream.

The Great Gatsby is a novel that was published in 1922 by F. Scott Fitzgerald, in this novel he writes about the Jazz Age in language that marvelously evokes music. The Great Gatsby is a romantic and cynical novel about wealth and he portraits characters in the novel who maneuver themselves in complex or difficult situations. The character Tom Buchanan, is Daisy Buchanan’s husband, which Daisy is cheating on him later with Gatsby whom I’ll explain who he is in a bit, and also Daisy is the main character’s cousin. The main character is a man named Nick Carraway which in the novel he is telling the story in a second person point of view of Gatsby, who is a fabulously wealthy young man living in a mansion in West Egg. He is famous for the big parties he throws every Saturday night, but no one knows what he does, what made his fortune, or where he comes from. In the novel Tom Buchanan is cheating on his wife Daisy for a woman named Myrtle Wilson who is married to a man named George Wilson, a lifeless man owning a run down garage in the Valley of Ashes. Tom Buchanan and George Wilson are more similar than different because they both got cheated on. They will be compared and contrasted on their attitudes towards women, their ways of showing violence, and their reactions of being cheated on.

     In perspective, The Great Gatsby written by F. Scott Fitzgerald also has many examples of the American Dream. The main character, Gatsby, shows by far the most want for something better in his life. Gatsby often shows this yearning. For example, when he said “You should live in California,” he was inferring that a better life awaits in California.(Fitzgerald,18) Growing up, Gatsby had all that he needed, but from an early age he showed signs of wanting more in life. As he expressed this hi s father would remind him that he was very fortunate by saying “Just remember that all of the

While taking a closer investigation of the characters within the book, The Great Gatsby it appears that a majority of the people who are involved are made to be hated, daisy with her manipulation and her greed. Jordan Because of her incurable dishonesty. Even Gatsby and Nick are not without there flaws, however, the most despised of them all is Tom Buchanan. Looking at Fitzgerald’s use of symbolism and word choice it will be made obvious that Tom is established as a cruel man, a blatant racist sexist and elitist and that in reality Tom is an empty and restless man

American politician Marco Rubio once said,“The American dream is a term that is often misunderstood. It isn’t really about becoming rich or famous. It is about things much simpler and more fundamental than that” (brainyquote.com). This concept is true in the novels The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, and The Great Gatsby by F.Scott Fitzgerald. In both novels, the protagonists (Holden and Gatsby) are pushed by society to live up to the stereotypical ‘American dream’. Both Holden and Gatsby have high and unrealistic expectations of themselves. They both share fond memories and their different ideas of the American dream; but in the end, they realize their ideas of them are just fantasies. After realising the truth behind the American dream, it leads them to their tragic end. The American dream is not beneficial because it pushes people in society to be something they are not. Both stories are tragic because the pursuit of the dream, and Holden’s individuality.

In innumerable pieces of literature, authors create specific characters to compare and contrast to other characters to give a greater depth to the intended character. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is one of the great classics of the twentieth century. The novel shows the fabulously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan. However, Daisy’s husband, Tom Buchanan has similarities and differences with that of George Wilson. George is the husband of Myrtle, who is also the mistress of Tom. They both have their ways with their attitude to women, their ways of showing violence, and their reaction to being cuckolded.

The ‘American Dream’; a thirst for wealth and success. Many want it, but few end up succeeding in achieving full success. Jay Gatsby, from The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is a fictitious version of someone who achieved success, and demonstrated his goals even from an early age. “Jimmy was bound to get ahead. He always had some resolves like this or something.” (Fitzgerald, 116) Says Mr. Gatz, who was Jay Gatsby’s father. This quote demonstrates how Gatsby had always planned to become successful, even when he was at a young age. Another one of Gatsby’s ambitions is Daisy. Even though Daisy is married to Tom, he sets his hopes high as she is the love of his life. “He hadn't once ceased looking at Daisy, and I think he revalued everything in his house according to the measure of response it drew from her well-loved eyes. Sometimes, too, he stared around at his possessions in a dazed way, as though in her actual and astounding presence none of it was any longer real. Once he nearly toppled down a flight of stairs.” (Fitzgerald, 91) This quote demonstrates how infatuated Gatsby is with Daisy. He set his hopes so high that he wanted to be with somebody who is ‘Old Money’, which is perceived as a higher class; and, the person that

Daisy Buchanan has a similar lifestyle to Tom, she’s wealthy ‘voice is full of money’ and always wore ‘white’ symbolising her purity and wealth. However as a woman of a higher class, there not much she can do in her ‘shallow life’, as she has the money but doesn’t know how to plan events ‘what do people plan?’. This shows that she is not content with her knowledge and understanding of life therefore even with money she isn’t ‘happy’. This leads her to ‘have an affair’ with an ex-lover whom she so adored before she married Tom ‘I did love him once – But I loved you too’. In the novel, Daisy only every seeks true love when she’s with Gatsby but ‘a rich girls don’t marry poor boys’, so due to this social difference between them, she knows the only place she will ever have security is with Tom. Tom describes their affair as a ‘presumptuous little flirtation’ because to Daisy, she knew she was never going to marry Gatsby but to Gatsby it was just never