Tom is large, athletic, wealthy, and confident to the point of being a bully. Expert Answers Tom and Daisy stay together most likely out of convenience. Both characters come from families of wealth, and this affords them a very leisurely lifestyle. Why does Nick kiss Jordan on their carriage ride at the end of the chapter? The chapter ends with Nick embracing and kissing Jordan.
The basic answer to this question is degree of intensity. Critics interested in the role of Nick Carraway as narrator in The Great Gatsby may be divided into two rather broad groups.
The majority position is the traditional one: Nick is considered quite reliable, basically honest, and ultimately changed by his contact with Gatsby. Why has Nick come to the East?
He did not seem to enjoy where he was living anymore and he was interested in starting a life of his own somewhere else. You just studied 9 terms! Although he hangs out with wealthy people, he is not quite one of them. Nick is honest and he prides himself on this attribute. There are limits to his objectivity, but the first few paragraphs of the novel definitely establish Nick as an honest guy and a reliable narrator.
Later, after Daisy suggests they go to town, and when tom returned he witnessed a soft glance that passed between Daisy and Gatsby and could no longer deny the two of them are having an affair. This is where F. Scott Fitzgerald presents unloyalty. In all honestly, Gatsby is part of the corruption in The Great Gatsby because he proves to be unfaithful with Daisy and in turn betrays Tom. Gatsby 's love for Daisy is more of an infraction because he is in love with the image of Daisy.
For instance, he cannot let go of their past relationship because he always sees Daisy as his dream woman. Tom is a wealthy, stuck up man who believes that cheating is one sided. He goes about his life with his wife, Daisy, along with a poorer mistress.
He is okay with the fact that he cheats on his wife; however, with he finds out that his wife is doing the same but with Gatsby he is outraged and angry. He was astounded. He later pushes Desdemona away as his mind is full of false thoughts from….
George's most important scenes come in chapters 7 and 8, during Myrtle's murder and its aftermath, so make sure to read and annotate those chapters carefully if you're writing about George. Look closely at his interactions with Tom and Myrtle, and also consider how George interacts with one of the novel's most famous symbols: the eyes of Doctor T.
Eckleburg he sees them as the eyes of God, while Michaelis tries to remind him it's just an advertisement. The fates of Gatsby, Myrtle, and George connect back to the theme on the broken promise of the American Dream , as well as a critique of the class system in s America.
How so? Tom and Daisy get to hide behind their money while Gatsby, Myrtle, and George end up dead. Specifically, Myrtle is run over by Daisy, Gatsby is killed by George who is manipulated by Tom , and then George kills himself.
So despite both Tom and Daisy's direct complicity in both murders, neither of them face any consequences for their bad behavior. This is a stark indictment of the class system in s America, in that the rich literally play by different rules than the poor or the up-and-coming. The fates of George, Myrtle, and Gatsby also shatter any illusions about the possibility of social climbing in this world , or even in the promise of the American Dream itself.
Whether you manage to amass a fortune like Gatsby, or just aspire to a better life like George, you're still powerless in the face of old money, privilege, and classism in the United States. This intense pessimism is supported by Nick's return to the Midwest at the end of the novel and the somber mood of the ending. You might be wondering, "how on earth does George not notice his wife is cheating on him"? After all, we know that Tom is not making a big effort to hide Myrtle from his friends, going to popular restaurants with her, and even dragging Nick along with him to the apartment he's rented for her in New York.
Plus, Tom comes visits the garage and he and Myrtle barely hide their relationship. So it could seem odd that George really has no clue. However, when you consider that George has no access to Tom's social circles , and that he rarely leaves his garage, George has no way to know what his wife is doing in New York and who she's seeing remember, this is an era long before cell phones and Facebook!
Furthermore, George is also super invested in doing business with Tom , so that's an incentive to subconsciously overlook whatever is going on. George's failure to notice the affair for so long speaks to George's complete isolation from the world of old money and, more broadly, the huge class divides in America in the s. Tom and Daisy's world is so separate from George's that they can live whole lives that he is entirely unaware of. This stark separation becomes clear in George's strange, sad walk to Long Island where he kills Gatsby and ends his life.
For George, the class lines in society were impossible to safely cross. Still a bit confused by exactly how the climax of the novel plays out? Read our summaries of Chapter 7 and Chapter 8 for a clear play-by-play of what exactly goes down on the road between Manhattan and West Egg.
Why does Myrtle cheat on George? What does she see in the bully Tom Buchanan? Read our analysis of Myrtle Wilson to fully understand the complicated marriage between the Wilsons!
Writing an essay about George Wilson? Then you should definitely read our analysis of the Valley of Ashes and the eyes of Doctor T. George is closely linked to these two symbols, so make sure you understand them!
We've written a guide for each test about the top 5 strategies you must be using to have a shot at improving your score. Download it for free now:. Anna scored in the 99th percentile on her SATs in high school, and went on to major in English at Princeton and to get her doctorate in English Literature at Columbia. Gatsby is depicted as being rich through the means of the 'Hotel de Ville' or 'mansion' 11 that he owns, and also by the way he holds lavish parties where 'champagne was served in glasses bigger than finger-bowls' Considering that Gatsby lives in West Egg not only reveals the true extent of his wealth, but additionally it shows that he is 'noveau riche' rather than 'old' rich like those who inhabit East Egg.
Gatsby has only recently acquired his wealth after migrating from the Midwest whilst following the 'New' American Dream. The original dream consisted of any American citizen having the right to pursue their goals and dreams through hard work and free choice.
It was the opportunity to make individual choices without the underlying restrictions of class, caste, religion, race, or ethnic group, that once overshadowed people. Often, people followed the common saying, 'Go West young man!
In the case of the 'New' dream, it was simply how the dream had become interpreted by the s. It was a distortion from the original dream to the idea of 'Get rich quick'. Being of 'New' wealth, Gatsby tries to flaunt his wealth about. When Nick asks Gatsby whether he is going to go home that night following the vehicular manslaughter of Myrtle by Daisy, Nick describes Gatsby in chapter eight, as wearing a 'pink rag of a suit' This description suggests how Gatsby wears these expensive, gaudy and colourful items of clothing in order to display his wealth ostentatiously.
The way in which Gatsby was driven by his undying love for a woman is a reflection of Fitzgerald's own life and dreams too. He too joined the army and eventually fell in love with a seventeen year old girl called 'Zelda Sayre'. Zelda finally agreed to marry him, but her overpowering desire for wealth, fun, and leisure led her to delay their wedding until he could prove a success. Their relationship appears to be like Gatsby and Daisy's.
The following quote reveals the point in the novel at which all of Daisy's charm and beauty is stripped away, leaving nothing but money to be admired underneath: 'That was it.
I'd never understood before. It was full of money- that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals' song of it. Following the death of Gatsby and the suicide of George, it becomes apparent that Fitzgerald is using the deaths of a rich man and a poor man who both set out to achieve their unattainable goals, to symbolise the death of the original dream on which America was founded.
With consideration given to George, he too shares the American Dream with Gatsby; however he seems to be pursuing the 'old' American Dream and not the 'New' one like Gatsby. George reveals his dream in chapter seven, where he says: I've been here too long. I want to get away.
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