First, it has a command of syntax and vocabulary. It even employs appropriate imagery in places (Look at the image of Tom’s hands at the end, for instance).
In F. Scott Fizgerald’s The Great Gatsby, there exists a gray buffer between the decadence of New York City and the ostentation of East and
West Eggs. Here, in this Valley of Ashes, one simple man lives out his days filled with these simple desires: a faithful wife, a steady job, modest living quarters. If the world had left George Wilson alone, he could have eked out a bland but harmless existence. But the valley is accessible to every train and car passing from the wealthy homes of Long Island to the luxurious hotels and seedy rooms of the city. One of these cars belongs to Tom Buchanan,
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So George tracks Gatsby back to the West Egg mansion, shoots Gatsby, who is lounging in a swimming pool, and then turns the gun on himself. The swaggering, careless Tom has brought all of these events into play, and in so doing, he has exposed the real George; underneath a thin coating of ashes,
George is a desperate man who needs his life to follow a certain pattern.
When Tom shreds that pattern to tatters, George can no longer make sense of his existence.
Therefore, if Gatsby must die at the end of the novel, there is no one better suited to destroy him than George Wilson. George is Gatsby in small: needing to belong to one woman, needing that woman to return his all-encompassing love. Yet Tom cups both these men in his brawny hands and squeezes the dreams right out of them, because his position and privilege allow him impunity. Long after the Gatsby-Wilson event,
Nick sees Tom in town, and Tom looks as if murder and adultery never entered his life. Unlike Gatsby and George, Tom is a man whose dreams were fulfilled before he was born—dreams realized in inheritance and social station. Without dreams, he is a man of little feeling, and can thus easily crumple someone as passionate as a George