Excessive Behavior in The Great Gatsby Excessive behavior is rarely a good thing. The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is a love story set during the Roaring Twenties. Excess often leads to unhappiness. In this novel, Tom's excessive behavior leads to his and other people's unhappiness. Tom's excessive wealth, carelessness, aggression, and abusiveness lead to the deaths of Mr. and Mrs. Wilson and Jay Gatsby, causing unhappiness for Tom and everyone involved. Tom is excessively rich, neglectful, aggressive and violent. Tom inherited a large amount of money from his relatives. The narrator, Nick, says, “His family was enormously wealthy – even in college his freedom with money was a source of reproach” (10). He has excessive wealth and uses it for himself. “He spent a year in France, for no particular reason,” undoubtedly spending a large amount of money (10). He lives among “the white buildings of fashion...