First Impressions Of Tom Buchanan In The Great Gatsby

In the novel The Great Gatsby, Nick has a bias over certain people and gives his initial impression on those people by examining their physical presence. Although Nick accepts all people, he still has his own impression towards people. When Nick first meets Tom Buchanan, he thinks of Tom as a selfish person. Nick describes Tom’s physical traits to input his first impression: “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). The physical traits that Nick points out about Tom reveals Tom’s character. Nick believes that Tom is someone who believes

Nick’s first impression of Daisy is someone who is a pleasant, delightful person. When Nick scrutinizes Daisy’s face, he gets the impression that she is someone who is very optimistic and beautiful. When Nick first meets Daisy, he describes the brightness of her face: “Her face was sad and lovely with bright things in it, bright eyes and a bright passionate mouth, but there was an excitement in her voice that men who had cared for her found difficult to forget: a singing compulsion, a whispered “Listen,” a promise that she had done gay, exciting things just a while since and that there were gay, exciting things hovering in the next hour” (Fitzgerald 9). In this scene, Daisy seems to be an innocent women who is very optimistic. Nick doesn’t really see any negative traits about her when he first meets her. The name “Daisy” gives the image of beautiful flowers. Daisy’s presence is like the presence of beautiful flowers used to be displayed. There is nothing terrifying about the image of flowers. In fact, flowers are just known to be objects that display its own beauty. The purpose of Daisy’s presence is to just display the beauty and the brightness of her beautiful face, just like flowers purpose to be displayed is to show its beauty. Nick’s impression of Daisy as someone who is optimistic and beautiful displays the innocence of Daisy and only a small insight on the kind of person Daisy actually

Nick does not speak to Gatsby until chapter 3 and Nick didn’t really notice who he was speaking to when he first met Gatsby. At first glance at Gatsby, it seems like he is someone who is innocent and is also someone that seems charming. However, Nick has a negative perspective towards Gatsby: “Precisely at that point it vanished- and I was looking at an elegant young roughneck, a year or two over thirty, whose elaborate formality of speech just missed being absurd” (Fitzgerald 48). Nick notices that Gatsby’s dream is to be successful by being rich and he wants to win his love with Daisy simply because of the fact she is rich. Gatsby knows that by getting Daisy he will be successfull financially and socially as well. He can show his pride to other people about his wonderful, beautiful girl and the abundant amount of money he would show to people if he won Daisy’s love. Nick knows that the only thing Gatsby cares about is money because that is his only ambition: to win Daisy’s love and become a rich guy living with a wonderful woman. Nick calls Gatsby a roughneck because of the way Gatsby earns his money and because of the goals that he wants to achieve. Gatsby’s goal to become rich by winning Daisy gives Nick a bad impression about him and Nick thinks of him as someone who is somewhat selfish in a way that he only cares about his own financial and social