The Great Gatsby and Tom Essay

Submitted By cloudy_custard
Words: 1895
Pages: 8
Open Document
WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE VIEW THAT THERE ARE NO WOMEN IN THE GREAT GATSBY WITH WHOM THE READER CAN SYMPATHISE WITH.
In this Novella there are only three women who hold any significance within the story, and effects events in different ways, to make us either sympathise or resent them as characters. These three characters are: Daisy, Mertyl and Jordan.
Daisy is the main woman in The Great Gatsby; she is the ‘dream’ in which Gatsby wishes to achieve and he goes all out to achieve it, however Daisy is a married woman with a child and so this helps complications to occur within the plot. This highlights the illusion and reality of Gatsby’s dream; he wants to be with Daisy – there’re moral complications, yet he doesn‘t care and continues pursuing the dream. In this sense we sympathise with Daisy because she has obviously attempted to build up a life without Gatsby, and be a ‘good wife’ for typical 1920’s women. In chapter 1 by looking at Tom with his status and personality then looking at Daisy’s status and personality in comparison we can clearly see a massive divide between the two, they do not get along and have obviously been paired together because of their money and social class, an example is the fact that Tom was absent from the birth of his daughter. This is also very obvious because Tom always interrupts Daisy as if he is never interested in what she has to say ‘“that’s what I get for marrying a brute of a man, a great big hulking, physical specimen of a-“ “I hate..”‘ She demonstrates her thoughts of Tom and it’s obvious her marriage is not happy. When she is described for the first time she’s described as angelic and innocent “both in white” (including Jordan but, she is far from innocent). For the first few chapters we sympathize with Daisy because Tom is having an affair, with Mertyl, and Daisy no doubt knows about it. But also Daisy’s marriage is very weak and Tom is described as “a brute” and so we know immediately that he is a really horrible and dislikeable person, which is then emphasized in the second chapter, where we then see the affair first hand and see Tom’s violence towards Mertyl (the punch in the face) this therefore really makes us sympathise with Daisy. However as the novella progresses Daisy becomes rather manipulative and egotistical, we realise how much of an attention seeker she is. This becomes very apparent during the affair between her and Gatsby. By hugging his shirts (chapter 5) it is like she is hugging Gatsby “beautiful shirts” – lost opportunity. The number of shirts shows opulence/wealth, she regrets that she didn’t wait. It’s almost as if the shirts are a turning point in their relationship, reveals money and opulence which now match Daisy’s, she doesn’t care about having an affair. At this point we want Gatsby and Daisy to be together because we don’t like Tom, we want them to be happy together, and so we sympathise with Daisy and hope that she will have a happy ending. By chapter 7 we really start to dislike Daisy, she is restless, because of this she doesn’t think and she refrains from taking sides and doesn’t seem to care about the tension she is causing in the men. She outwardly flirts with Gatsby in front of Tom “you always look so cool” to which through Nick’s observations Tom reacts and realises the extent of Daisy and Gatsby’s affair “she had told him that she had loved him and Tom saw”. We get the feeling that she just plays both men along purely to get attention, and so we start to label her as an annoying attention seeker and sympathise less with her. Daisy wants two men to fight for her. Seemingly at the beginning she has everything but still misses the attention of others. As a result Nick, in chapter 7, shows Daisy as a careless and insensitive woman that just wants others to decide for her “had never, all along, intended doing anything” ” Daisy cannot and will not make up her mind, so at this moment we decide that Daisy and Gatsby’s love story was destined to fail
Show More

Related Documents: The Great Gatsby and Tom Essay

Tom Buchanan In The Great Gatsby

is involved or devoted to wickedness or crime. In the novel, “The Great Gatsby”, Tom Buchanan is the villain as the result of being a manipulative man whose careless and selfish decisions led to the demise of several characters. Tom is the symbol of carelessness and the shallowness of the wealthy. He constantly sees himself as so much better than everyone else, and is always believing the words of others over his own opinions. Tom Buchanan had been cheating on his alluring wife, Daisy, with the auto-shop…

Words 803 - Pages 4

Tom Buchanan In The Great Gatsby

Tom Buchanan is a dynamic character in the book The Great Gatsby. He has a dominant personality which shows in his actions and words. Tom has a craving for power. This craving makes him seem domineering towards people. Tom clearly lets everyone know through what he says and does that he loves power and will do almost anything to attain it. Starting from the beginning of the novel the reader will notice that Tom is haughty. He has no problems asserting his authority. The reader should also notice…

Words 612 - Pages 3

Tom Buchanan Symbolism In The Great Gatsby

writing. Symbolism is a major part and makes up most of the story. “The Great Gatsby”, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is a novel that focuses on symbolism and how it develops a modernist theme. This novel contains symbols that relate the theme, lies and deceit, to a modernist theme, rejection of traditional themes, subjects, and forms. One symbol that represents lies and deceit is Tom Buchanan’s personality. In the beginning of the novel, Tom talks very openly about his racial beliefs stating that the leading…

Words 1229 - Pages 5

Characteristics Of Tom Buchanan In The Great Gatsby

In the book The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tom Buchanan is shown to be a man who is aggressive, impulsive and one who lies and cheats, but knows how to deal with all the chaos that goes on. These harsh and strong characteristic, categorize Tom Buchanan with the color orange. The color orange represents perfectly the aggressive, lying, cheating and impulsive person Tom Buchanan is. One of the main characteristics the color orange shows is aggression. Throughout the book it is evident…

Words 623 - Pages 3

The Role Of Tom Beaucanon In The Great Gatsby

In the book The Great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald, Tom Buchanan is held captive by the ideas of the book ‘The Rise of Colored Empires’ and the prospect of losing his wealthy and white privilege from it. The wacky and bigotry views of the book ‘The Rise of the Colored Empires’ have easily captivated Tom Buchanan and his beliefs. While he was describing the book, Tom states that says that the white race will be “utterly submerged”. This idea that “the white race will be—utterly submerged” is very extraneous…

Words 494 - Pages 2

How Does Tom Survive In The Great Gatsby

Jay Gatsby and Tom Buchanan clearly depict these two kinds of people in the novel The Great Gatsby, Tom is a man whose life is something anyone would dream of, he has a nice house, a nice car, and a beautiful wife. All of these contribute to Tom's cocky personality and the way he treats others. Gatsby also has a life of luxury, but his personality differs drastically…

Words 897 - Pages 4

Similarities Between The Great Gatsby And Tom Buchanan

“The Great Gatsby” George Wilson, and Tom Buchanan are far more alike than it seems, because of their attitudes toward women, their ways of showing violence, and their reactions to being cheated on. Tom Buchanan and George wilson have very similar attitudes toward women They are both very controlling. Neither one of them seem to care too much about women in general. George cries “oh my god” over and over when his wife is hit by a car, but its not because she was hit with the car, its because…

Words 529 - Pages 3

Similarities Between Tom And Wilson In The Great Gatsby

In the novel The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald paints a picture of societal frenzy of the early 1920’s. His characters, Tom Buchanan and George Wilson, represent the class struggles and radical extremes of the era (Levitt, 2011). Despite their physical and character diversities, the economical and societal differences, Buchanan and Wilson share many similarities. Tom Buchanan is depicted as a large man. This is evidenced in Nick’s description of Tom; “Now he was a sturdy straw-haired man of thirty…

Words 624 - Pages 3

Explain Why Did Daisy Stay With Tom In The Great Gatsby

In the novel The Great Gatsby, some argue about why Daisy stayed with Tom and did not leave him for Gatsby. Tom and Daisy stay together because of social status, their child together, and because Daisy actually did love Tom, regardless of what she said. Daisy is the cousin of the narrator, Nick Carraway. She was married to Tom Buchanan, a polo player who was born into money. Before Daisy married Tom, she was “in love” with a man by the name of Jay Gatsby. Gatsby was sent off to war and did not come…

Words 294 - Pages 2

What Do You Find Striking of Fitzgerald’s Description of Nick’s Visit to Tom and Daisy in Pages 20 and 21 of the Great Gatsby? Essay

What do you find striking of Fitzgerald’s description of Nick’s visit to Tom and Daisy in pages 20 and 21? Fitzgerald uses various techniques to strike the reader by using his themes of materialism and lack of communication. He uses these techniques effectively in order to strike the reader’s feeling and manipulate them into thinking one thing when in reality it is another. Additionally, he uses Nick’s narration to influence the reader’s judgements about certain characters and cause them to understand…

Words 1569 - Pages 7