Tom Buchanan has worse morals than a criminal because he is a lying, deceiving cheater and all he does is gaslight the other characters. The Great Gatsby is a story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, narrated by one of the characters, Nick Carraway. The book follows Nick's summer in Long Island where he meets a millionaire named Jay Gatsby. Gatsby is obsessed with Nick's cousin, Daisy, who was his past lover before he was sent away to war. Throughout the book, Nick helps Gatsby reunite with Daisy to try to rekindle the love they once had; even though Daisy is married to Tom Buchanan. Tom has all the qualities that define a person as bad. He's arrogant, dishonest, manipulative, and controlling. Tom Bunchanan is the most vile and detestable character in …show more content…
A quote to support this is on page 27, where the text states, “Making a short deft movement, Tom Buchanan broke her nose with his open hand.” Tom hits Myrtle because she kept repeating Daisy's name and provoking him, his act of aggression in response to her shows that he won't hesitate to hit someone when he's angry. Any normal person would ignore Myrtle or try to deescalate the situation, but since Tom is a bad person, he responds with violence instead. Another example of Tom being one of the most vile characters in the book is on page 82 where he says, “The trouble is that sometimes she gets foolish ideas in her head and doesn’t know what she’s doing.” What Tom says here proves that he is manipulative and controlling. He tries to define Daisy as naive, saying she does not know what she's talking about and completely disregarding her own thoughts and opinions. Lastly, on page 19, Tom says, “I want you to meet my girl.” Here Tom is talking about Myrtle, he's clearly not ashamed that he's cheating on Daisy and has two different …show more content…
On page 82, Daisy says, “I never loved him.” Daisy was claiming not to love Tom the entire time they were married, but she only said this because Gatsby was pressuring her. It's obvious that Daisy did care for Tom to some extent, as she was reluctant to leave him, even though he was cheating on her. Another example would be on page 89 where Gatsby says, “Well, first Daisy turned away from the woman toward the other car, and then she lost her nerve and turned back. The second my hand reached the wheel I felt the shock-it must have killed her instantly.” One may argue that Daisy is the most awful character in the book because she killed Myrtle, but it was clearly an accident. Myrtle only ran out into the street because she thought the car belonged to Tom. If Tom had not taken Gatsby's car, Myrtle would not have thought the car was his and ran out onto the road. Though these quotes could be used to argue that Daisy is the worst character in The Great Gatsby, she's clearly not as both of these situations were not actually her