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Who Was The Most Responsible For Tom's Death In The Great Gatsby

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Sam Vitale Mr. Forte English 11 1 March 2023 West Egg Betrayal In life, Betrayal is one of the worst feelings imaginable. You could make the argument that multiple people are responsible for Gatsby's death, but nonetheless he was betrayed. In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tom is the character most responsible for Gatsby's death. This is because he sold him out, and his relationship with Myrtle led her to jump in front of the car. As stated earlier, Tom is the most responsible for Gatsby's death for two reasons. The first being the fact that he sold him out to Wilson (Myrtle's husband). After Myrtle got ran over, Wilson went to Tom's house and questioned him about whose car it was and who was driving it. Tom told him gatsby out of fear for what Wilson would have done to him if he stayed quiet. “He was crazy enough to kill a …show more content…

Although it isn’t extremely clear why Myrtle jumped in front of the car, it’s a fair assumption that it was because she thought it was Tom. Towards the end of the book you see that Myrtle and Wilson are in an argument. Then you see her try to get Tom's attention from the upstairs window. “In one of the windows over the garage the curtains had been moved aside a little, and Myrtle Wilson was peering down at the car. So engrossed was she that she had no consciousness of being observed, and one emotion after another crept into her face like objects into a slowly developing picture” (Fitzgerald 77). Given the context of this quote it is safe to assume that Myrtle had a distraught look on her face. Then when she saw the car again she jumped in front of it because she wanted to leave Wilson and be with Tom. To conclude, Tom is the one most responsible for Gatsby's death because of two reasons. He sold Gatsby out, and his affair with Myrtle caused a chain reaction of events that also caused his

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