Tom & Mr. Wilson

The last person Tom Buchanan would claim to have similarities with in Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby would be Mr. Wilson.  Tom always thought himself way above his mistress' husband.  He was a coward, but so was Tom.  Cowards hit women, but Tom did not think this way.  In reality, very few men of this time thought this way.  However, as the story develops, parallelism between the two characters is easily found.  Both of them lose their spouses, though one figuratively and one literally, they both lose the person they once loved.  Now, they join Gatsby's company and are completely alone in life.  Tom lost everybody: Daisy and Myrtle.  Mr. Wilson loses the only thing he seemed to care for.  The juxtaposition of these two men's lives is made obvious when Tom confesses to Nick, "'I told him the truth'" (Fitzgerald, 178)  I feel as if he would not have said this if he did not believe he owed something to or could empathize with Mr. Wilson.