Why Is Tom Important In The Great Gatsby

In The Great Gatsby, Gatsby and Tom have different personalities, but they both have their life of luxury in common, as well as their love for Daisy. Just like in reality, we have things in common with people around us. Sometimes we may get intimidated by certain people because of their personality, but the intimidation could also be because we do not know them that well. Sometimes we make assumptions about people because of how they act. Once we get to know them we might find out that our assumptions are wrong.
Even though Gatsby and Tom both are rich, they show that they cannot spend their money like responsible adults would. Tom was born into the rich high society, while Gatsby was born into the poor society. Gatsby got rich by bootlegging, and he was also involved with people who gambled. He threw elaborate parties in hopes of getting to see his true love again. Robert and Helen Roulston show us that Fitzgerald used Gatsby trying to win Daisy back to reveal a little bit about himself and his experience with Zelda (Roulston 5). He read newspapers and bought a house across the lake from her house with hopes of meeting her again. Gatsby’s house helps his image even more by playing the part of a millionaire (Stocks 2). According to Robert and Helen Roulston, Fitzgerald told us that he did not specifically try to point out that Gatsby was the best
Gatsby’s lie showed us that the reason he did it was to challenge Nick and the prosperity of Gatsby’s idea to get married to Daisy and show that climbing the ladder of social status will come with some hefty costs (Stocks 2). He changed his name when he was 17 years old to Jay Gatsby. He was a secretary to Dan Cody who was rich, and Gatsby was suppose to inherit Dan’s money when he died, but Ella Kaye got it instead. Gatsby was thought to have everything worked out for him to go from being poor to getting rich, but the higher class ‘old money’ did not approve (Stocks