Similarities Between Tom Buchanan And Jay Gatsby

“The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a story filled with lust, bloodshed, and greed. In the story many charters act immoral and greedy. The reason for this is because they have been corrupted by money and power. A prime example of this corruption is Tom Buchanan. In the story “The Great Gatsby” it is evident that Tom Buchanan was corrupted by both money and power when he only cared about other people’s stature, demonstrated that he was very ignorant, and lacked any type of moral values.

In many instances, Gatsby showed signs of selflessness. But, if the reader were to dig deeper into the roots of the story, they will be able to see that under the kind acts and good deeds, Gatsby’s intentions were always selfish. After the car scene, Tom, Jordan, Daisy and Nick returned to Daisy and Tom’s house. As Gatsby waits outside of the home, Nick, unknowingly, asks Gatsby whether or not Daisy was driving. Gatsby replies saying, “Yes, but of course I’ll say I was” (Fitzgerald 143). When Gatsby took Daisy’s place in the murder of Myrtle, although seeming kind-hearted, his only reason for this was to earn Daisy’s love and to impress her. Gatsby has somewhat put up an image of himself to be the pure and almighty man that deserves Daisy more. Meyer Wolfshiem, Gatsby’s business partner, mentions to Nick of Gatsby’s chivalrous actions towards women saying, “Yeah, Gatsby’s very careful about women. He would never so much look at a friend’s wife” (Fitzgerald 72). Although Meyer Wolfshiem’s comment on Gatsby about him being a gentleman, and how he would never look at another man’s wife, Gatsby proceeds to exceed all expectations and have an affair with Tom’s wife, Daisy Buchanan. Yes, some might say his only reason for doing so was out of true love and destiny but, in either case, it was morally wrong. In every action that Gatsby commits for Daisy, his selfishness secretly hides beneath it, shading itself from light so no one will approach the real man that lurks behind the curtains of self pride.

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

Gatsby does not realize that Daisy also represents the corruption that comes along with wealth. "Her voice is full of money, he suddenly said. That was it. I'd never understood it before. It was full of money--that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals' song of it. . . . High in a white Palace the King's daughter, the golden girl" (127). Gatsby becomes obsessed with Daisy and her voice that promised riches, but he does not realize that money was the only thing she offered. After listening to Tom, Nick describes Daisy and Tom as careless people who "smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made" (188). Daisy lets Gatsby take the blame for Myrtle’s death and shows no concern over Gatsby’s death showing her carelessness with people’s lives. Tom and Daisy’s actions indicate the corrupting effects that wealth can have on someone. They focus too much on appearance and materialism and ignore other people’s feelings and lives.

Jay Gatsby is a self-made man, he turned himself from a farm boy to one of the richest men in America at the time and bought himself a beautiful mansion on West Egg, Long Island with the other new millionaires. In contrast to the newly rich, there are those who have inherited their wealth from family before them such as Tom and Daisy Buchanan. These people were lucky to be born into their lives and reside on East Egg along with other family’s with “old money”. Readers come to easily

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is a drama that describes the underlying hypocritical ways of Tom Buchanan. Tom Buchanan is a very arrogant man who doesn’t care for people's feelings being affected by his actions. Whether that be his wife, friends, or newly befriended people he simply doesn’t think before he acts. Fitzgerald portrays Tom as a misunderstood man in the beginning, but as the story unfolds Fitzgerald shows the true Tom. While Tom seems to be the all around infatuating man his underlying racist, cheating, and lying ways will perfectly describe the average deceptive American man.

The desire for social pleasure was rampant in the roaring twenties and in The Great Gatsby. On the surface, Gatsby’s dream appears very materialistic. We’ve just talked about his fancy parties and his flash car. But if Gatsby’s dream was truly material, would he chase after Daisy? If his aim was purely material, he wouldn’t have been such a desperate romantic figure. We’re selling him a bit short here by accusing him of just wanting money. He is unsatisfied with his wealth, and pursues something greater – ‘true love’. Gatsby’s idea of ‘success’ was Daisy. Granted, you and I will agree that Gatsby could have done so much better. In fact, what does Daisy represent? Daisy has a symbolic name, and the way she gleams “in the sunlight” (pg 160) is merely a white façade covering her superficiality. The truth is, she and Tom are “careless people”, they “smash up things…and retreat into their money and carelessness…let other people clean up the mess they’d made” (pg 191). You may think Gatsby’s corrupt. However, clearly Daisy and Tom are the corrupt ones; they think they can do anything and everything, with the social influence and wealth they gained at birth. Daisy exploited Gatsby, his naive desire of “the golden girl” (pg 128), the ‘girl of his dreams’ – or so he believed. Fitzgerald also wanted a girl out of his league; Ginevra (Erbentraut, 2013). Very much like Daisy, Ginevra couldn’t be with Fitzgerald because of she was rich and cool and he

Honesty may be the best policy, but lies and deceit are what makes us human. Throughout the novel, The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, various characters are presented with demoralizing features that further them away from innocence. One can see by examining characters Tom Buchanan, Daisy Buchanan and Jay Gatsby that the underlying theme of lies and deception have a great impact on the story. By examining Tom Buchanan, one can see that he feels so unfulfilled and entitled in his level of society.

Pride, precision and perfect product” by Tom Buchanan in The Great Gatsby George Wilson and Tom Buchanan are pretty dissimilar. Tom is wealthy, a bully and never works while George, who works all the time, he is bullied and is miserable. But both men have something very similar, they are wild men. Their anger controls their lives and mind, also how their life terminated.

One of the major topics explored in The Great Gatsby is the sociology of wealth, specifically, how the newly minted millionaires of the 1920s differ from and relate to the old aristocracy of the country’s richest families. In the novel, West Egg and its denizens represent the newly rich, while East Egg and its denizens, especially Daisy and Tom, represent the old aristocracy. Fitzgerald portrays the newly rich as being vulgar, gaudy, ostentatious, and lacking in social graces and taste. Gatsby, for example, lives in a monstrously ornate mansion, wears a pink suit, drives a Rolls-Royce,

In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, many major characters are driven by a corrupt version of the American Dream. This leads to deception and dishonesty, both intentional and accidental. The worst offender of this deception throughout the entirety of this novel is Jay Gatsby, whos twisted morals lead him to lie, cheat, and hide in order to live the life he lived.

“Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience who you really are”,William Shakespeare. People get to really pick and chose who to let them see the real them and let them inside their true self it’s up to you to do so in the process. Also those who try to see the real you are people who want to experience you. Jay Gatsby and Tom Buchanan are very different.

In the classic, American novel, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald there is a clear conflict between Jay Gatsby and Tom Buchanan. Although these two characters seem to be two people with completely different lives, they also have many similarities. All of these similarities and differences contribute to Daisy’s interest in both men, but there are many reasons why she might choose one over the other. Even though Tom and Gatsby have both found their way into Daisy’s heart, they live two very different lives. For example, it is revealed in chapter 6 when Nick explains the actual origin of Gatsby that, “His parents were shiftless and unsuccessful farm people”.

Giving Daisy a false impression of himself eventually led to his demise when Tom reveals how corrupt and fake Gatsby really was. Gatsby intentionally has Daisy convinced that he’s the same socioeconomic status as her so he could finally be her which would justify all of his actions if he achieved his end goal. Hes convinced himself that this was all worth it but deep down he knows what he did is not considered right so he copes with his guilt by not telling

Tom and Gatsby were two different people, but one thing they had in common is that they were both compulsive liars. As Fitzgerald writes “ ‘Why-’ she said, ‘Tom’s got some women in New York.’ ”(Fitzgerald 15). There we find out that he is cheating on Daisy, and being a cheater comes with being a liar. Tom would always would be somewhere he is not supposed to be. He also lied to both women in his life, because he did not want to lose either of them. Concluding all of that, Tom was a dishonest person overall that didn’t know how to control himself. Just like Tom, Gatsby was a liar also. We find out throught the whole book that he is a liar, but we received more detail about it in the part of the story when Tom states what Gatsby really does. He explains “ ‘I found out what your drug- stores were’. He turned to us and spoke rapidly. ‘He and this Wolfsheim bought up a lot of side street drugs-stores here in Chicago and sold grain alcohol over the counter.’ ”(Fitzgerald 133). Comparing Tom and Gatsby we see that they are both compulsive liars. We see