Nick describes Tom, the first time he sees him as a,
“Sturdy straw-haired man, of thirty, with a rather hard mouth and a supercilious manner. Two shining arrogant eyes had established dominance over his face and gave him the appearance of always leaning aggressively forward” (pg 12).
This shows that right from the beginning Nick sees Tom in an “evil” way – “arrogant eyes”. When Tom takes Nick to meet Myrtle (his mistress), Nick watches the way Myrtle cheats on her husband right behind his back and the way Tom cheats on his wife right behind her back. He is “simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life”, for instance when Tom says, “Terrible place isn’t it?” Nick replies “Awful”, showing how disgusted he is by their way of life.
Nick describes Gatsby just after he meets him for the first time as “ An elegant young rough-neck, a year or two over thirty, whose elaborate formality of speech just missed being absurd” (pg 49). He also uses Gatsby’s eyes a lot to describe his emotions, “with tense, unhappy eyes”. One of Gatsby’s friends, Mr. Wolfshiem, described him as “handsome to look at and a prefect gentleman” (pg 70). Nick also describes him as someone with tight skin drawn unusually tight on to his face, with bright, tired eyes, and someone with a broad flat hand. Gatsby tries to show off his wealth a lot through the novel, with his big house, his free fancy parties, his nice car, being well dressed and especially when he shows Daisy around the house. At the beginning Nick questions the truth about Gatsby’s education, when he does not believe that Gatsby went to Oxford. The reason for this questioning is because Gatsby hurried the phrase, “educated at Oxford”.
I think that Nick prefers Gatsby to Tom, because when Tom claimed that Gatsby was a bootlegger, Nick straight away said, “Not Gatsby” and in my opinion, he knows Gatsby better than he knows Tom. He trusts Gatsby more, especially after he found out the truth about the relationship between Daisy and Gatsby, which puts away all his misinterpreted thoughts about Gatsby being a criminal. Virtually everything that Tom says in the book about Gatsby, Nick sees as insulting, “Then Tom’s voice incredulous and insulting”. Even after Nick and Tom meet up, a long time after Gatsby’s death, he still does not like Tom, and feels that he had something to do with Gatsby’s death, “What did you say to Wilson that afternoon?”
Gatsby’s attitude towards other people is pleasant and friendly, for instance he shows generosity towards a woman he did not know, by buying her a new dress, just because it got spoilt at one of his parties! Nick describes his smile as reassuring, “It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it”, and Gatsby’s saying, “old sport” makes you feel befriended. When Nick walked in on Gatsby and Daisy talking, he sees a change in Gatsby, “He literally glowed; without a word or a gesture of exultation a new well-being radiated from him and filled the little room”. This shows the romantic, light-hearted side of Gatsby
Tom is generally ruse to people, Mr. Wilson, for example. He cheats on Wilson behind his back, and promises to give him his car, but never give it. He walked out on Wilson with Myrtle, while Wilson was getting some chairs for him., which he asked for so that he could sit. When Myrtle annoyed him, by repeating Daisy’s name over and over again, he hit her on the nose to shut her up. He is also rude to Gatsby throughout the novel, when he starts to get suspicious of him, “Who is Gatsby anyway, some big bootlegger?”
The attitudes of Tom and Gatsby towards each other are evidently clear – they never liked each other from the start of the novel. The first time that they met was in a restaurant, just after Nick and Gatsby had lunch. They all shook hands after Nick introduced them to each other, but the next time Tom looked, Gatsby had disappeared. “I turned towards Mr. Gatsby but he was no longer there” (pg 72). At this point I interpreted Gatsby to be a criminal, but the next few pages revealed everything, and you find out this he is actually in love with Daisy (a romantic). Two weeks later Gatsby meets Tom for the second time, at his house, after Gatsby started having an affair with Daisy, and his attitude towards Tom changed. He wants Daisy to tell Tom about their relationship.
Overall Nick does not really describe Tom’s feelings or behaviour very much throughout the novel. He mainly explains what is going on, and leaves you to interpret Tom the way you want. He concentrates more on Gatsby and his emotions, especially when it involves Daisy. From all this evidence I can conclude that Gatsby is portrayed as the hero, and Tom as the villain, implying that they are opposite characters in mind, and are therefore compared and contrasted as opposite to each other.
