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Tom Buchanan Symbolism The Great Gatsby

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Autumn Alldred Ms. Tripp-Smith The Great Gatsby 12 December 2016 Characters Symbolic In The Great Gatsby In the novel, The Great Gatsby, the characters portray the disintegration of the “American dream.” Tom Buchanan is seen as a cheater and aggressor but to Tom these characteristics are not important. Gatsby is the complete opposite, he is the man everyone wishes they were. Gatsby is living the “American dream.” Daisy is the traditional “American Women”, she has everything she thought she wanted including a husband and money. What more could she ask for? The Great Gatsby is destroying what America is supposed to look like at this time by doing everything that is seen as wrong. Tom symbolizes the typical white, rich, arrogant man from the East Egg. Tom Buchanan is the husband of Daisy. He is unloyal with many affairs throughout the novel. Nick writes about Tom’s affair, “The girl who was with him got into the papers, too, because her arm was broken - she was one of the chambermaids in the Santa Barbara Hotel”(77). Tom is also aggressive towards women, because he broke the chambermaid’s arm and punched his mistress, Myrtle, in the nose. His aggresiveness and cheating ways show his sexism attudite towards women. Daisy knows about Tom’s affairs, but she does nothing about it. Is Daisy not brave …show more content…

Maybe it is because she's holding onto her past love, hoping he will come back for her. Tom is the demise of the “American Man.” The

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