Tom Buchanan is an Abusive Monster Who Gets Away With Everything.
The Great Gatsby has been a part of American culture for almost a century. From the original novel, which coined the phrase ‘Roaring Twenties’, to the brilliant 2013 Baz Lurhman film, the story has been told and retold, analyzed and interpreted. It’s even become a staple of high school English classes, in some cases only a few decades after the novel was released. There have been many articles written over the years about the book, its themes and its characters. I shall be analyzing the story based on two versions: the original novel, and the 2013 Baz Lurhman film.
Most articles analyzing the characters, whether in the book or movies are usually about any of the following four things:
- Gatsby, and his obsession with the past, and how he loved the idea of Daisy instead of the real, flawed person
- Daisy being a heartless, shallow woman for “leading Gatsby on”
- The idea of Gatsby’s love of Daisy being a metaphor for the American Dream by realizing it isn’t what it’s made out to be, leading to crushing disillusionment
And, more recently:
- The idea that Nick Carraway, Daisy’s cousin and the narrator, developed feelings for and fell in love with Gatsby at some point over the course of the story.
While these are all interesting concepts, and they each may carry a kernel of truth, none of them ever seem to examine Tom, Daisy’s rich, arrogant husband, and how he treats his wife and everyone else in the story. Essays on the topic seem to rarely mention that he’s hands-down the cruelest, most heartless person in the book.
In the story itself, he never seems to receive any repercussions, beyond Nick’s belated scorn for him. In essays about the story, he’s either mentioned as a brief side note, or he fades into the background. His abusive nature is the biggest aspect I feel gets ignored.
Tom is abusive and cold to many people, and his primary target is Daisy. It’s to the point of barely acknowledging her. He never shows her any affection or says that he loves her, even just for show.
To others, he behaves politely in public. But when he’s in private and he’s not getting his way, he’s thoroughly unpleasant. Whether he’s being insufferably arrogant or desperately recounting his glory days, he’s clearly not a kind or caring person. He’s obviously power-hungry, image-obsessed, sexist and very racist.
Daisy is Tom’s primary victim — and she responds like a victim would.
When I say Daisy responds like a victim, I’m saying she displays the signs and symptoms of being a typical victim of spousal abuse.
Tom is verbally and emotionally abusive to Daisy. He exhibits many classic signs of emotional and verbal abuse throughout both the book and the film. Daisy, for her part, responds to this like a victim would. She might occasionally express anger or dismay about his cheating, about how he treats her, or about how cynical she’s become, as she tells Nick early on in the story. But like many victims, Tom has so thoroughly damaged Daisy’s self-esteem that she seems to just give up, and resign to be with someone who doesn’t love her. He also manipulates her and treats her like a possession instead of a person.
Tom’s Abusive Traits
There are numerous examples throughout the book and the film that Tom emotionally, mentally and occasionally physically abuses others, especially Myrtle, yet Daisy remains his primary victim. I’ll be examining several aspects of emotional abuse and how Tom fulfills them throughout the film and novel.
- Abusers think you only exist for their needs
Daisy is there to be Tom’s trophy wife, the ultimate prize he gets to flaunt to show up other men. He got the rich, beautiful girl and she exists to validate his social status and his white, male, superiority. Myrtle, along with the dozens of other women he’s cheated on his wife with, only exist for his pleasure and control. He uses these other women, and tosses them aside when they no longer suit his whims, or his entanglements with them become inconvenient.
- Abusers are jealous
Tom is insanely jealous of Gatsby, and tends to feel inferior in other ways as well. In both the book and recent movie, Tom is miffed by, and fixates on being introduced as “the Polo player.” Clearly, the two men compete for Daisy and Tom can’t stand the idea that a man who’s “Mr. Nobody from Nowhere” could possibly hold any appeal to his wife. He’s disgusted by the idea of her loving him in any valid way, and feels jilted by this, even though he’s cheated on her over and over again, starting on their honeymoon.
- They lack maturity
Tom is immensely immature. He wants what he wants when he wants it, and when he doesn’t get it, he acts like a petulant child. Calling Gatsby “Mr. Nobody from Nowhere” sounds extremely juvenile. He takes people for granted and especially after noticing how Gatsby and Daisy are becoming close once again, he says and does whatever he can to insult Gatsby, and treats him as worthless or a phony of sorts, such as not “truly” being an Oxford man.
Another example of Tom’s immaturity is how possessive he is. Daisy is his, no one else is allowed to have a connection with her without him looking over their shoulder. And he acts possessively with other women too. When Tom drags Nick to West Egg to have a party with Myrtle and her friends (which is based on a thinly veiled excuse to sleep with with her,) he has Nick sitting downstairs by himself at the start of this “party” while, especially in the 2013 movie, it’s extremely obvious he’s having sex with Myrtle upstairs. Nick gets so uncomfortable hearing them that he almost leaves. This is immature because it’s pretty obvious Tom just wants to show off that he can do whatever he likes with Myrtle and that he can get any woman he wants. The idea of showing off just to impress others, is similarly immature.
Another aspect of immaturity is feeling justified in whatever you do, despite being a hypocrite. He’s furious Daisy has been with Gatsby again, yet he’s cheated on her numerous times throughout their short marriage. In fact, at one point in the film, Daisy angrily references that the reason why they left Chicago in the first place was the scandal Tom caused by cheating on her with someone else! Tom justifies his behavior, saying it’s all acceptable because he always comes back to Daisy. Like many abusers, he tells her over and over again, every time he cheats that it’s over and it’ll “never happen again” and that it “didn’t mean anything.”
- Abuses are predominantly concerned with image
A prime example of Tom’s obsession with the perfect image is when he mocks Gatsby behind his back for daring to wear a light pink suit, which in his eyes negates any manliness Gataby has. Tom has the best things money can buy, from clothing to decor, a huge estate, elaborate dinners, the latest model of telephones, even how many servants he can afford to hire, just to show off his wealth and status. Tom takes every opportunity to remind everyone how wealthy and well-connected he is.
- Similarly, abusers want to appear “perfect”
Daisy, as mentioned above, is a trophy for Tom and he ensures they both have lavish, expensive clothing and a huge house to project a perfect image — no matter how miserable either of them are. Tom also acts sufficiently polite in public settings so he can project the image that he is a calm and decent man who’s also immensely rich. He has the girl, the looks and the money, so he’s “perfect”. As we can tell by his private behavior, he’s anything but perfect.
- Abusers’ main goal is to control their partner, especially through social isolation
Throughout the story, pretty much any time Daisy goes someplace, her husband goes with her. They go to Gatsby’s parties, they go out to the City, etc. While that may have been common for this era, Tom still makes sure to keep an eye on Daisy during their outings, especially if she’s with Gatsby. He doesn’t really treat her like an adult and certainly doesn’t trust her. In fact, it’s only a few times when Daisy manages to be out on her own, like having tea with Nick and Gatsby, or the times she has her trysts with Gatsby.
- Abusers are often cruel
Tom is by far the cruelest person in the book. Even his physical description uses the word “cruel”. He has a “cruel body” with “enormous power”. He is unfeeling, has no real emotional attachment to anyone, especially his own wife and daughter, and he won’t hesitate to be violent or confrontational, if it appeases his temper. In the book Daisy mentions that he hurt her little finger and it gets worse: he punches Myrtle so hard he breaks her nose, all because she dared to say his wife’s name. He intentionally riles up Gatsby when they visit the Plaza Hotel, and Gatsby lashes out in a way they had never been seen before, especially in the movie where he screams in Tom’s face and balls his hand into a fist, ready to punch him. Daisy, in both the book and movie, refers to Tom as a “brute” which is a very apt description.
The clearest signs of Tom’s abusive behavior are, of course, shown during the hotel scene in New York, where Daisy is trying to break up with him and he resists in a number of aggressive ways. He insults and interrogates Gatsby in a desperate attempt to make him look worse and somehow dissuade Daisy from him. He gets angry and even flies into a racist rant about how if people have interclass marriage, or even marriage between “old” and “new” money, they’ll start having interracial marriage, and the mixing of races will (somehow) destroy the nuclear family structure.
The apex of his abuse is during this scene when he employs what is called “emotional blackmail”. When Daisy tries to tell him she never loved him in order to leave him, he immediately manipulates her, reminding her of the moments he acted sweetly or romantically to her during their marriage. Except that from what we know about the couple, those moments were probably few and far between. In fact, they may have been the only romantic, sweet moments they shared. He does this to exert his control and influence over Daisy and guilt-trip her into staying with him, even though he doesn’t care about her. To borrow an expression, he’s “like a dog in a manger”. He doesn’t want Daisy because he loves her, but only so he can continue to possess her, and ensure no one else can have her. He is infuriated that someone else might want to be with her, and tries to keep her as close to him as he can, even when he offers her nothing. No loyalty, no love, and no respect for her as a person. Again, she is merely his trophy.
So over and over again we see Tom display his abusive and controlling tendencies and he is unbelievably cruel to many people, namely Daisy, Myrtle and Gatsby. He continually proves to have virtually no redeeming qualities and some of his behaviour seems to border on sociopathic.
And above all, he gets away with every last misdeed because of his money, status, or his endless excuses. It’s time we stop giving his character a pass.
Sources Consulted:
•Fitzgerald, Scott F. The Great Gatsby, 1925
•The Great Gatsby (2013) Dir: Baz Luhrmann
•”20 Traits of Emotional Abusers" | Swan Waters
https://swanwaters.com/emotional-abuser/
•”How to Identify and Cope With Emotional Abuse" | Very Well Mind
https://www.verywellmind.com/identify-and-cope-with-emotional-abuse-4156673
•”11 Reasons Why People in Abusive Relationships Can’t 'Just Leave’" | OneLove.org
