Need to write letter for The Great Gatsby from Tom to Nick.

In writing a letter from Tom to Nick, you will want to consider the various dynamics that mark Tom's perceptions of his relationship to Nick in The Great Gatsby. 

In a letter to Nick, Tom might address ideas like these: 

• Why Nick should still admire and respect Tom for his successful evasion of responsibility in the wake of three deaths. 


• Why Tom is unshaken in his faith in himself even after nearly losing his wife to another man then helping to cover up his wife's role in a hit-and-run accident. 


• Why Tom is possibly sorry that things went so wrong that summer and that Nick was caught up in it all. 


• Why Nick might be seen to be somehow just as guilty and responsible as anyone else for these deaths. 

Tom is arguably, after all, a shallow materialist who is interested in exercising his own power more than anything else. These traits color his relationship to Nick and would most likely appear in any letter he would write to the less wealthy, less experienced and less callous cousin of his wife (Nick). 

In writing the letter, you might think about expanding upon or exploring the central dynamics of the relationship between Tom and Nick and look at them from Tom's point of view. Considerations of both Tom's character and his actions in the narrative might help shape the content of your letter.

Patronizing and Arrogant -- Early in the novel, Tom relates to Nick in ways that can be described as patronizing and condescending. Tom recognizes that Nick is new to the east coast and to the environs of the very wealthy and he brings Nick along with him to New York City with the apparent expectation that Nick will not have judgmental or negative feelings about Tom cheating on Daisy with Myrtle. 

Nick does not agree to meet Myrtle. He is forced to meet her. 

"I went up with Tom on the train one afternoon and when we stopped by the ashheaps he jumped to his feet and, taking hold of my elbow, literally forced me from the car. 

'We're getting off,' [Tom] insisted. 'I want you to meet my girl.'"

This is an example of Tom's arrogance, which is perhaps Tom's most enduring and characteristic trait. 

Guilt -- Tom is aware that Daisy is responsible for Myrtle's death, yet he deflects blame from his wife onto Gatsby. He effectively turns the man he has cuckolded into a murderer and a suicide when he gives Wilson Gatsby's address late in the novel. 

Nick is left as the only person to deal with the aftermath of the tragedy (which includes Myrtle's death, Wilson's death and Gatsby's death). 

Given Tom's sense of entitlement and sense of exceptional-ism, we might wonder if he would write to Nick to explain why he does not (and should not) feel guilty. Perhaps Tom would expand on the idea he expresses to Nick regarding his sense that Wilson would have shot him (Tom) and would have shot Daisy if he did not provide Wilson with Gatsby's address. 

If we presume that Tom may have grown and come to accept some responsibility for the numerous deaths that occur, he might offer some qualified apology to Nick in his letter.