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Compare And Contrast Tom Buchanan And The Great Gatsby

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Judy Garland once said, “For it was not into my ear you whispered, but into my heart. It was not my lips you kissed, but my soul” (Garland). Daisy Buchanan was the object of affection for Tom Buchanan and Jay Gatsby. Tom Buchanan tried to use his wealth to woe Daisy into loving him. Jay Gatsby used his charm. wealth, and past encounter with Daisy to swindle her away from Tom. Even though Gatsby and Tom were portrayed as opposites of each other, they both have a lot in common. Tom Buchanan and Gatsby both used people to their advantage to get what they wanted; they both were culprits of infidelity, but the wealth Gatsby possessed was self-made unlike Tom Buchanan. Jay Gatsby and Tom Buchanan both take advantage of the people they met, in …show more content…

Tom had an affair with Myrtle Wilson. In his affair with Myrtle, Tom verbally berates Myrtle. Since Myrtle is of a different class, he feels like a king, especially in her eyes. Tom buys her lavish gifts, but in the end he is so vulgar towards her. He verbally berated her, physically assaulted her, and yet it does not affect him. Tom gained a sadistic satisfaction by knowing he was superior to Myrtle. Tom couldn’t have this feeling towards Daisy because Myrtle is just his mistress. “The fact that he had one was insisted upon wherever he was known. His acquaintances resented the fact that he turned up in popular restaurants with her and, leaving her at a table, sauntered about, chatting with whomever he knew” (Fitzgerald 24). Tom was so pitiful. It's one thing to have an affair; it's quite another to humiliate your friends and wife by rubbing that mistress in their face. On the other hand, Gatsby’s infidelity was kept almost a secret in comparing to Tom’s. In regards to Gatsby and his unfaithfulness to moral obligation, Gatsby lied and lied about his past and his money. Also, the reader never really saw this in detail, but the affair is pretty well implied. The amount of time she spent at the Gatsby residence, and the effort he went through to keep her visits secretive. “I hear you fired all your servants.” “I wanted somebody who wouldn’t gossip. Daisy comes over quite often—in the afternoons” …show more content…

Gatsby's rags-to-riches success story makes him an embodiment of the American dream. He started life with nothing, as the son of unsuccessful farmers. Tom Buchanan inherited all of his money from his family. “His family were enormously wealthy, even in college his freedom with money was a matter for reproach… he’d brought down a string of polo ponies from Lake Forest. It was hard to realize that a man in my own generation was wealthy enough to do that” (Fitzgerald 6). Tom Buchanan was filthy rich. Tom’s carelessness of spending money didn’t matter because the money really wasn’t his. In comparison to Tom, Gatsby appreciated the fortune he worked for. Despite the way the men reached their riches, Gatsby and Buchanan possessed similar

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846 Words | 4 Pages

Ruqaya Abed Ms. Rodgers Tom Buchanan and Jay Gatsby are portrayed as complete opposites throughout F. Scott Fitzgerald novel The Great Gatsby. Tom and Gatsby can be described as rivals, or enemies and readers tend to choose a side of who they like better. This leads the reader to believe that Tom and Gatsby are certainly different, especially due to their clashing personalities. However, on an analytical scale, it is clear that Tom and Gatsby display many similarities throughout the text.

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800 Words | 4 Pages

Tom Buchanan and Jay Gatsby are two main characters in the novel “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Gatsby and Tom are similar in many ways but Gatsby is a better character because he cares for people and their feelings. Throughout the novel you can see how alike these two are and What is the difference between Gatsby and Tom Bouchernon. Tom and Gatsby have many things in common, one being their love for Daisy. Tom and Gatsby both showed their love for Daisy in different ways.

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1069 Words | 5 Pages

Shea Stuckey Schmit College English 05/08/23 Gatsby and Buchanan: Two sides of the same coin The book The Great Gatsby follows the story of a self-made wealthy man, Jay Gatsby, through the eyes of a middle class midwestern, Nick Carraway. Nick depicts Gatsby as a larger than life, mysterious, complex, and ultimately great man. Nick includes Gatsby’s 5 year long infatuation with Nick's cousin, Daisy Buchanan, while depicting Tom, Daisy’s husband, as a terrible, aggressive, uncaring man. While Nick's depiction of Tom is altogether not far off from the truth, Nick neglects and hides the similarities between Tom and Gatsby, while there are glaring differences between the two men, they are quite frankly two sides of the same coin.

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867 Words | 4 Pages

In Francis Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, there are two characters by the names of Tom Buchanan and George Wilson. Throughout the book, these two particular characters seem to be very different from each other in nearly every way. However, it becomes clear as the story continues that they share some ideas and attitudes in common. Specifically, Tom and George were noteworthy in the way they felt about women, the methods by which they conveyed violence, and how they responded to their wives cheating on them.

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345 Words | 2 Pages

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby” is known for having a lot of cheating people, even if it’s cheating in a golf game or cheating on a person. One of the many characters that is a cheater is Tom Buchanan. Tom is married to a lady that goes by the name of Daisy and has a lover named Myrtle. He is also known for moving around a lot and having plenty of money to do so. Tom in “The Great Gatsby” is careless and racist.

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991 Words | 4 Pages

Both tom Buchanan and George Wilson are two vastly different people but are alike in the most unusual ways. They are the only two characters in the book to use violence; both say they “love” Myrtle and both fight for their women only when they are about to lose them. That is where the similarities cease. Tom is the man who cheats on his wife daisy, with George 's wife Myrtle, and then proceeds to slap her when she would not stop speaking Daisy 's name. George, on the other hand, is a passionate and faithful husband to Myrtle and is crushed to learn that she was cheating on him so much so that he assassinates Gatsby whom he thinks was cheating with myrtle and murdered to get rid of the evidence of his adultery.

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Tom is married to a very beautiful women, Daisy Buchanan, she was his so called trophy wife. Tom can take her to social events and she makes him look good for all his buddies and peers. Tom also gets an attractive women to have companionship with out of Daisy. Tom had Myrtle, her lust for life kept feeding his ego and her sexual attraction to him, and he to her, was very clear. Tom was very open about his affairs but once he started noticing that Daisy stared showing interest towards Jay he became defensive towards her.

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290 Words | 2 Pages

hallmarkfranklin was a maverick president , he established a social system that any precedent president never had done it . jay Gatsby is a maverick person by his actions around people , for instance , whereas people have fun and drink , Gatsby abstain from it. after the death of Gatsby , the dream did not dissolve from its existence , truly , Gatsby had vanished from the living , but he maintained his dream to stay intact , and be praised by the American thinkers . the revenge of mr wilson 's wife disrupted Gatsby to achieve his dream . the death of Gatsby did not disrupt the daisy from continuing to live peacefully .

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274 Words | 2 Pages

Can money buy happiness? In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald uses dialogue to establish Tom Buchanan’s personality. Narrator Nick Carraway introduces Tom Buchanan, the husband of Daisy, as a man born to wealth. Despite his riches and societal rank, Tom is dissatisfied because he disrespects others and cheats on his wife with Myrtle.

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625 Words | 3 Pages

The Great Gatsby contains a story of two men who acted out in very different ways, all because of anger caused by unfaithfulness and murder. Tom is the kind of man who, when he feels like he’s being picked on unfairly, he attacks back immediately. “Some time toward midnight Tom Buchanan and Mrs. Wilson stood face to face discussing, in impassioned voices, whether Mrs. Wilson had any right to mention Daisy’s name. “Daisy! Daisy!

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1238 Words | 5 Pages

In “The Great Gatsby” by F.Scott Fitzgerald, Tom Buchanan represents a man who is unfaithful, selfish, and arrogant. Throughout this essay, the character Tom Buchanan will be analyzed and will explain his purpose in this story as well as the many flaws he possesses which make him an unlikable person. Tom is considered to be the antagonist in this novel, but his main purpose in this story is to be the barrier between Daisy and Gatsby. Unbeknownst to Tom, Daisy eventually gets back with Gatsby but has a massive fit once he finds out they’re together.

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1223 Words | 5 Pages

“And what's more, I love Daisy too. Once in a while I go off on a spree and make a fool of myself, but I always come back, and in my heart I love her all the time” (Fitzgerald 138). These words, spoken by Tom Buchanan in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic novel The Great Gatsby, exemplify the personality traits that are omnipresent throughout the novel. Tom is Daisy Buchanan’s husband whom she marries after her first love, Jay Gatsby, leaves for the war.

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539 Words | 3 Pages

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is considered the typical American novel, known for its emphasis and twist on the American Dream. Some people, such as Jeffrey Decker, disagree with this view on the book. Decker insists in his article, “Corruption and Anti-Immigrant Sentiments Skew a Traditional American Tale”, that the loss of faith in the hope of social mobility and the idea of the self-made man in The Great Gatsby is a direct cause of the anti-immigrant attitudes due to the rising tide of immigration in the 1920s. I have mixed feelings about Decker’s argument. He blames the loss of trust in social advancement and the independent man on the rising tide of immigration in the 1920s.

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925 Words | 4 Pages

Gatsby is not the only one with twisted views as a result of unfaithfulness. Myrtle, George’s wife, is cheating on George with Tom in the book made clear here, “Wilson? He thinks she goes to see her sister in New York. He 's so dumb he doesn 't know he 's alive" (26). George suspects the cheating, but never truly discovers what is going on before she dies.

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609 Words | 3 Pages

Tom’s altercation with Myrtle accentuates his hypocrisy and lack of self-control; while he doesn’t feel guilty for cheating on Daisy with Myrtle, he feels that he has the right to maintain his authority over Myrtle. In this same scene, Myrtle, who is also drunk, draws attention to the negative aspects of her personality.

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