Tom exclaims: "Self control! I supposed the latest thing is to sit back and let Mr. Nobody from Nowhere make love to your wife (137)." This excerpt displays both Tom's hypocrisy as well as his possessive nature. He is angered by a crime that he himself perpetrates, as well as disgusted by the chance of losing another possession. Although he does not openly admit it, Tom thinks of his wife as an item and protects her only in order to salvage his own social ranking. Later in the book, Tom reveals his ultimate rapaciousness by instigating the murder of Gatsby. This instance shows how low individuals are willing to sink in order to achieve social merit and prominence. His wife, Daisy, is Nick's cousin and also a typical socialite. She acts cynically, for the most part, because she is jaded from her excessive lifestyle and subsequently striped of a moral conscience. When notified of her daughter's birth, Daisy states: "All right, I"m glad it's a girl. And I hope she"ll be a fool - that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool (21)." From this passage it is inferred that Daisy cares not for character but for status. She would rather her daughter be a likable idiot than an original wit. Because Tom and Daisy have this attitude, it is obvious that the American Dream is upside down and society very corrupt for encouraging this type of lifestyle.
Jay Gatsby, a young and reserved upstart, lives on the "West Egg" of Long Island. He is not a beneficiary of family wealth and has therefore made his fortune independently. When he was growing up a common man, a wealthy boat-owner befriended and introduced him to the lifestyle of extravagance. It is when Gatsby first tastes this social status that he becomes completely obsessed with it and refuses the return to normalcy. Nick ponders: .
The truth was that Jay Gatsby, of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself So he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen-year old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end (104).