The Great Gatsby Tom Buchanan Analysis

Tom Buchanan got married to Daisy Buchanan while Gatsby was studying in Oxford. Tom Buchanan is viewed as an aggressive, arrogant and unfaithful man throughout the book. He wanted Nick Carraway to meet his mistress, Myrtle Wilson who is married to George Wilson, who live in the valley of ashes. As Tom says in chapter 2, “I want you to meet my girl” (24), this shows that he really trusts Nick, and that even though they were friends back in Yale days,, Tom knows that he can depend on Nick. Tom Buchanan is careless and doesn’t care what others think about this affair and he probably had a mistress because his marriage with Daisy wasn’t always happy. Myrtle is also unhappy with her marriage with George Wilson because she thought she was marrying a gentleman as she said in chapter 2, “I married him because I thought he was a gentleman... I thought he

knew something about breeding, but he wasn’t fit to lickm shoe” (34). Although Tom is a very “abusive” lover, Nick witnesses everything that happened that day, like when Tom breaks Myrtle’s nose, and yet he keeps his judgements and opinions to himself and doesn’t tell anyone about it.

Before Myrtle’s death, George Wilson finds out that she was having an affair with someone because of this very expensive dog leash he found in a drawer. As Nick describes it, “There was nothing in it but a small, expensive dog-leash, made of leather and braided silver. It was apparently new.” (158). He figured it out with that small piece of evidence because first of all, they never owned a dog and second of all, the Wilson’s never had enough money to buy such a lavish thing. When he shows Michaelis the leash George then concludes that the person who she’s having an affair with killed her.. Michaelis observed that Myrtle was trying to speak to the man in the car and didn’t stop. As Michaelis quotes in the book, “It was the man in the car. She ran out to speak to him and he wouldn’t stop. Thinking that Gatsby is the man Myrtle is having an affair with and the one who ran her over, George kills Gatsby and

himself.
Even though Nick Carraway is the narrator, he wasn’t actually in that scene, but he described everything perfectly. George Wilson says that the eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg are the eyes of God and that he sees everything. Although it is just an advertisement, it could also be the eyes of Nick Carraway since he sees everything that goes on in the Valley of Ashes or anywhere.