Tom's Role In The Great Gatsby

Words: 1268
Pages: 6

The roaring twenties. Probably jazz music came to mind first, maybe flappers and bootleggers or anything else this time period is famous for. But the main difference between then and now, in my opinion, is the way people acted/ were treated based on the set gender roles. Men were stereotypically manly men, and women were trophies, willing to put up with the man's antics. The man had total control of their significant other and dominated the workforce. Two main characters, Tom and Daisy Buchanan, in The Great Gatsby, a novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, represent the opposite ends of the spectrum. Daisy is an airheaded, ditzy woman, she is used to following societies rules. Tom, on the other hand, is an imperious and hot-headed man who is the epitome …show more content…
The opposite of that is someone like Nick, who is passive and quiet, very unwilling to ruffle anyone’s feathers. There were many times that wrong has happened in front of Nick that he did nothing about it. In the case of Tom and Myrtle, Nick watched his friend slap his mistress and he did nothing to help the situation, “making a short deft movement, Tom Buchanan broke [Myrtle’s] nose with his open hand,” (). A real man's man like Tom is strong and hot-headed, representative of the stereotypical male, that most desired to be or marry. Nick is passive, and a better listener than a talker. The range between these two, and even Gatsby and Nick has a contrast of current and past norms. The screaming would start before the talking, then the fists would come out. They would put their demands on the table and attempt to ruin the person who wasn’t allowing it. When Daisy's affair with Tom was out in the open, they both refused Daisy the right to choose who she wanted to be with herself. “‘She’s not leaving me!’ Tom’s words suddenly leaned down over Gatsby,” (140). Toms failure to respect his wife's decisions leads to a blowout between himself and Gatsby, an argument that Nick stays out of. Daisy tries her best to let her opinion on the matter be known, but then men have little respect for anything they don't agree with. Nick is silent when his cousin is being verbally attacked by her husband and boyfriend, He could have attempted to break up the fight, which would give Daisy the respect she deserved, but he did