Tom Buchanan In The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald

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The Character of Tom Buchanan
In a world where wealth determines power, the character, Tom Buchanan, is an exemplary model of the American dream and how it is unattainable. Tom Buchanan represents a lifestyle in which many Americans live today, a lifestyle becoming increasingly more popular in modern times. Especially in today’s society, infidelity is becoming more and more acceptable to each generation. F. Scott Fitzgerald could see this happening in the society around him, and, in turn, created the character, Tom Buchanan, in “The Great Gatsby” to illustrate that ideology that was slowly becoming acceptable in today’s society and portray it in its true and repulsive form.
Tom Buchanan’s characteristics were fabricated to mimic those in society …show more content…

Scott Fitzgerald designed Tom Buchanan in an effort to showcase the absurd idea that society is conforming to-- the idea that being unfaithful to a significant other is morally justifiable. Fitzgerald was not naive when it came to the people around him, and he uses his writings to allude to the major problems that society faces. Statistics drawn have shown that infidelity has increasingly been becoming more popular, especially with the younger generations. This page about the “truth about deception” found that cheating is more common for those under thirty and is becoming more popular in modern times due to the increasing amount of younger members of society having numerous amounts of sexual relationships before marriage. Not only was F. Scott Fitzgerald able to accurately illustrate a growing problem through his character, Tom Buchanan, but he was also able to portray through this character just how few cheaters actually leave their original relationships that were unsatisfying to them. According to a study completed by the Pennsylvania State University, it was found that those who cheat in the relationship were less likely to leave the relationship while those who discovered that his or her partner was unfaithful were more likely. Tom fits these facts well-- even though he is thirty in the timeline of “The Great Gatsby”, his relationship with Myrtle Wilson was said in the novel to have been going on for some time, and he had also confessed in being in other affairs before. Even though he knew his actions and how it was hurting his wife, he still refused to leave her or let her leave him when she found a man who would give her the love she

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