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Causes Of Tom's Discrimination Towards Others In The Great Gatsby

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Those who have a fear of being inferior causes the feeling to make others feel discouraged to make themselves feel superior. During the 1920’s, individuals that came from inherited wealth, alike Tom Buchanan from The Great Gatsby, were known as people that have old money. People that have old money wanted to be exceeding others that have gained the title of new money, people that acquired their money. In the novel The Great Gatsby written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tom’s obsession with how he is seen, as well as his desire to further discriminate against others is due to his underlying need to be superior to everyone.

Tom’s passion of how he appears to others is due to his need to be above everyone by the reason of his status. During one of …show more content…

While Tom is at dinner with Daisy, Jordan, and Nick, Tom discusses that he believes that the dominant race, in which he belongs to should “watch out for the races” since that they “will have control of things” (Fitzgerald 13). By using the threat of other races being “control of things” implies that he is disgusted by the thought of not being kept as being in the dominant race since he enjoy the reputation of himself being a part of being in the dominant race. Tom saying “watch out for the races” expresses that he wants to maintain the dominant races control so that other races would be above Tom’s race. During Gatsby’s party where Tom is present, Tom questions Gatsby’s occupation and believes that Gatsby is a bootlegger and supposes “A lot of these newly rich people are just big bootleggers, you know.”(Fitzgerald 107). Since Tom is from old money, Tom assumes he is better than anyone from new money and by vocalizing that he thinks “newly rich people are just big bootleggers” catches Tom further degrading people with new money success by stereotyping them that they get money in illegal ways. By Tom adding on more discrimination against people that seem to be below him in his mind, such as other races and people with old money, is due to his need to be supier and his fear to be less than

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