The Great Gatsby contains a love triangle between Tom Buchanan, Daisy Buchanan and Jay Gatsby. Initially, Daisy was in love with Gatsby, but she married Tom while he was at war. Gatsby was left with a broken heart and a strong determination to win her back and prove that he was worthy of her. Tom Buchanan and Jay Gatsby are very different people with two things in common; their money and, above all, their desire to have Daisy. Tom Buchanan is described as having a strong and repulsive presence. He was a star athlete at Yale and is restless after his glory days spent there, "...he was one of the most powerful players who ever played football in New Haven: a national figure in a sense, one of those men who achieve such acute and limited excellence at twenty-one, that everything afterward smacks of an anti-climax” (p. 10). He is arrogant and seems to believe he can have everything he wants. Even if he has a wife and child , he has no problem having a mistress on the side and doesn't care that others, including his wife, know this. Furthermore, Tom is very self-centered and only cares about himself and his own desires. Tom was what the family of Daisy considered suitable for her daughter. This, along with his money, is mainly why she married him. Jay Gatsby, originally called James Gatz, has less of a presence than Tom and acts more like a child with a desire to. approval. Gatsby is able to remain hidden at his parties and remains mysterious to his guests. Gatsby grew up poor in North Dakota and reinvented himself into the person Nick meets because he was never satisfied with his life. Unlike Tom, Gatsby does everything with Daisy in mind. He built a gigantic mansion right in front of him… middle of paper… even in college his freedom with money was a cause for reproach” (10). He doesn't necessarily flaunt his money like Gatsby does, but it's still obvious that he has it. Tom is more comfortable with his wealth as he has always had it. Gatsby, on the other hand, shows off a little more and is more extravagant with everything. Many aspects of Tom Buchanan and Jay Gatsby are polar opposites. They grew up differently, look at life from very different points of view and treat people in opposite ways. Their commonalities lie in wealth and their bond with Daisy, although even there they differ in many aspects. At the end of The Great Gatsby, Tom gets to continue living his privileged lifestyle and still has Daisy while Gatsby is left dead and betrayed. Works Cited Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York, NY: Scribner Paperback Fiction, 1995. Print.