The Great Gatsby

Gatsby: pages 23-38

Tom Buchanan in Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby truly has no shame.  Carraway is his wife's relative, and he still wants to show off his mistress to him.  I am just as disgusted with Myrtle; she is married too!  The only difference is that, unlike Daisy, her spouse is totally oblivious to the affair.  As Tom so callously puts it, "'Wilson?  He thinks she goes to see her sister in New York.  He's so dumb he doesn't know he's alive'" (Fitzgerald, 26).  But for as much as Tom bashes Daisy and Mr. Wilson, it seems like he either truly loves her, or is too territorial to let her go.  I say this because Myrtle's sister Catherine confides to Carraway that "'Neither of them [Tom and Myrtle] can stand the person they're married to'" (Fitzgerald, 33), and yet Tom lies about Daisy's religion.  He says the reason he can't be with Myrtle is because Daisy is Catholic and they don't condone divorces, when in fact she is NOT Catholic.  I think Tom just wants an excuse to stay with his wife but still run around with Myrtle. 

Fitzgerald uses more foreshadowing in this chapter of the novel.  We get another nugget of information on Gatsby; he might be a man worthy of fear!  Catherine herself admits to Carraway that she is "'scared of him.  [She'd] hate to have him get anything on [her]'" (Fitzgerald, 32).  Does Gatsby blackmail people from whom he wants something?  Why is so little known of him?