Search results
Tom is, above all, characterized by physical and mental hardness. Physically, he has a large, muscle-bound, imposing frame. Tom’s body is a “cruel body” with “enormous power” that, as Nick explains, he developed as a college athlete. Tom’s strength and bulk give him an air of danger and aggression, as when he hurts Daisy’s finger ...
- Tom Buchanan Quotes
Nick continues to describe Tom in Chapter 1, this time...
- Character List
Tom Buchanan Daisy’s immensely wealthy husband, once a...
- Tom Buchanan Quotes
Tom Buchanan Tom is a character with few redeeming qualities. He represents the worst aspects of the super-rich in American society whose money insulates them from the normal constraints of law or ...
Tom Buchanan—hulking, hyper-masculine, aggressive, and super-rich—is The Great Gatsby's chief representative of old money, and (in a book with many unlikeable people) one of the book's least sympathetic characters. He is Gatsby's rival for Daisy's love, but he is also caught up in an affair with Myrtle Wilson that proves fatal for many involved.
- Nick Carraway
- Jay Gatsby
- Daisy Buchanan
- Tom Buchanan
- Jordan Baker
- Myrtle Wilson
- George Wilson
- Owl Eyes
- Klipspringer
- Meyer Wolfsheim
The novel’s narrator, Nick is a young man from Minnesota who, after being educated at Yale and fighting in World War I, goes to New York City to learn the bond business. Honest, tolerant, and inclined to reserve judgment, Nick often serves as a confidant for those with troubling secrets. After moving to West Egg, a fictional area of Long Island tha...
The title character and protagonist of the novel, Gatsby is a fabulously wealthy young man living in a Gothic mansion in West Egg. He is famous for the lavish parties he throws every Saturday night, but no one knows where he comes from, what he does, or how he made his fortune. As the novel progresses, Nick learns that Gatsby was born James Gatz on...
Nick’s cousin, and the woman Gatsby loves. As a young woman in Louisville before the war, Daisy was courted by a number of officers, including Gatsby. She fell in love with Gatsby and promised to wait for him. However, Daisy harbors a deep need to be loved, and when a wealthy, powerful young man named Tom Buchanan asked her to marry him, Daisy deci...
Daisy’s immensely wealthy husband, once a member of Nick’s social club at Yale. Powerfully built and hailing from a socially solid old family, Tom is an arrogant, hypocritical bully. His social attitudes are laced with racism and sexism, and he never even considers trying to live up to the moral standard he demands from those around him. He has no ...
Daisy’s friend, a woman with whom Nick becomes romantically involved during the course of the novel. A competitive golfer, Jordan represents one of the “new women” of the 1920s—cynical, boyish, and self-centered. Jordan is beautiful, but also dishonest: she cheated in order to win her first golf tournament and continually bends the truth. Read an i...
Tom’s lover, whose lifeless husband George owns a run-down garage in the valley of ashes. Myrtle herself possesses a fierce vitality and desperately looks for a way to improve her situation. Unfortunately for her, she chooses Tom, who treats her as a mere object of his desire. Read an in-depth analysis of Myrtle Wilson.
Myrtle’s husband, the lifeless, exhausted owner of a run-down auto shop at the edge of the valley of ashes. George loves and idealizes Myrtle, and is devastated by her affair with Tom. George is consumed with grief when Myrtle is killed. George is comparable to Gatsby in that both are dreamers and both are ruined by their unrequited love for women ...
The eccentric, bespectacled drunk whom Nick meets at the first party he attends at Gatsby’s mansion. Nick finds Owl Eyes looking through Gatsby’s library, astonished that the books are real. Read an in-depth analysis of Owl Eyes.
The shallow freeloader who seems almost to live at Gatsby’s mansion, taking advantage of his host’s money. As soon as Gatsby dies, Klipspringer disappears—he does not attend the funeral, but he does call Nick about a pair of tennis shoes that he left at Gatsby’s mansion. Read an in-depth analysis of Klipspringer.
Gatsby’s friend, a prominent figure in organized crime. Before the events of the novel take place, Wolfsheim helped Gatsby to make his fortune bootlegging illegal liquor. His continued acquaintance with Gatsby suggests that Gatsby is still involved in illegal business. Read an in-depth analysis of Meyer Wolfsheim.
Tom Buchanan is a brute who embodies the preening, power-hungry narrow-mindedness of the East Egg elite. Nick, who knew Tom from their time at Yale, remarks that Tom was once an incredibly ...
Tom Buchanan has parallels with William Mitchell, the Chicagoan who married Ginevra King (the heiress who inspired the character of Daisy.) Buchanan and Mitchell were both Chicagoans with an interest in polo. Like Ginevra's father, whom Fitzgerald resented, Buchanan attended Yale and is a white supremacist. Character Analysis []
People also ask
Who is Tom Buchanan in the Great Gatsby?
Who is Tom Buchanan?
Does Tom Buchanan work for a living?
Who is Daisy Buchanan?
How does Tom Buchanan treat Wilson?
Who is Tom in the Great Gatsby?
Tom Buchanan is arrogant in every way, and acknowledges his social superiority through acting intellectually superior than everyone he speaks to. Tom appears to be dictated by his physical strength; he has a muscle-bound frame that Nick describes as a “cruel body” with “enormous power” (Chapter 1).
