The Great Gatsby

Chapter 9 103

how does nick characterize tom and daisy by the end of the book? What has each of them “smashed” during the course of the novel?

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I couldn’t forgive him or like him, but I saw that what he had done was, to him, entirely justified. It was all very careless and confused. They were careless people, Tom and Daisy — they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made. . . .

Tom characterizes Daisy and Tom as careless. Over the course of the novel, they were responsible for three deaths. Daisy ran over a woman in the street. Tom lied, and as a result of his lie, a man was murdered, and the man who did the murdering took his own life. Tom and Daisy..... they went on as if nothing happened.

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The Great Gatsby