Gatsby is cast as a Jesus figure, strengthening the idea that fantasy never lives up to reality: “The truth [is] that Jay Gatsby of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself. He [is] a son of God- a phrase which, if it means anything, means just that- and he must be about His Father’s business, the service of a vast, vulgar, and meretricious beauty” (Fitzgerald 98). Jesus served God by serving others, namely mankind (the “vast, vulgar, meretricious beauty” above). Likewise, Gatsby serves Daisy, his own horrible beauty. He believes his new persona will win him her heart, but it only leads to the woe that later befalls him, with startling parallels to Jesus’s crucifixion. Jesus was undone by his servants, just as Daisy crushes Gatsby’s dream, unbeknownst to him. When taken with the fact that after meeting Daisy, Gatsby “committed himself …show more content…
Nick wants Gatsby’s dream to come true, whereby proving the American Dream is not dead but also can see the East is an amoral place full of snobbish, selfish people represented by Daisy. Fitzgerald uses Nick to display the futility of the American Dream. Nick’s dream, in effect Gatsby’s dream, dies in the Plaza Hotel in New York City. When Tom hints Gatsby's fortune is dirty, “he [begins] to talk excitedly to Daisy, denying everything, defending his name against accusations that had not been made. But with every word she was drawing further and further into herself, so he gave that up, and only the dead dream fought on as the afternoon slipped away, trying to touch what was no longer tangible, struggling unhappily, undespairingly, toward that lost voice across the room” (Fitzgerald 134). Gatsby’s fantasy is surely lost at this moment, although only Nick is aware. At the end of chapter seven, Myrtle dies and Nick comes across Gatsby, who is outside the Buchanan’s house because he is afraid Tom will abuse Daisy. Nick observes most people would think Tom and Daisy were “conspiring together” and that
Gatsby’s dream is ruined by the unworthiness of its object, just like the American dream in the 1920s is ruined by the unworthiness of its object. Like the 1920s Americans in general, Gatsby longs to recreate a now gone past (his time in Louisville with Daisy)—but isn’t able to do so. When Gatsby's dream crumbles, all that's left for Gatsby to do is to die; all Nick can do is move back to Minnesota, a different place up North where American values have not
Nick’s American Dream was the opposite of Gatsby’s; he always strived to see and do new things every day, constantly reaching for the future, while Gatsby only wanted to relive his past with Daisy. Once Nick feels like there is nothing left for him to discover in New York, he moves back west to rediscover the lost excitement after Gatsby’s death. Nick also believed that Gatsby was foolish in his American Dream because it was unattainable. Nick uses imagery to illustrate the appeal of West Egg before Gatsby’s death, describing the illusions of “those gleaming, dazzling parties”, stating that he could “still hear the music and the laughter, faint and incessant” (Fitzgerald 179).
Tom and Daisy could have dissolved rifts between them had they known they were each seeing someone else, and Gatsby could have been spared if the true killer had been revealed. Regardless of the events that transpired, Nick remained silent, and that led to more destruction than just his own friends. Nick once said that, “[He is] one of the few honest people [he] has ever known”(59). When looked at in retrospect, this statement is completely false, and causes inspection of another fact that he had stated that, “Gatsby turned out alright in the end”(2). In the end, Gatsby dies.
There are many bible references in the Great Gatsby. According to Thomas Foster, inhis book How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Biblical references include himtelling many stories from the bible and comparing them to today. Jay Gatsby andDaisy mostly fit these profiles because of their unfortunate love and the bad thingsthey have done. Even though Tom is cheating on Daisy for Myrtle, Daisy decides todo the same thing with Gatsby and call herself a better person and think its okaythat she does it just because Tom does. On page 121-123, Gatsby and Daisy followNick, Jordan, and Tom to town, which is quite fond of slavery, which sounds just likethe story Thomas told of 4 white men from a slave country riding up.
Gatsby is the most responsible for the tragic ending of the novel, his own death. He ignored warnings from close friends about potential danger, refused to let the gardener drain the pool, and took blame for something he did not do, which all led to his murder. After Myrtle gets run over by a car and passes away, Nick believes he must warn Gatsby that her death will be traced back to him. Nick tells him to “go to Atlantic City for a week, or up to Montreal” (Fitzgerald 91) because he knows that the car used to kill Myrtle belongs to Gatsby and people will find out about it. Nick tries to look out for his best friend Gatsby, but unfortunately, Gatsby does not even take this warning into consideration and refuses to leave West Egg.
Scott Fitzgerald, the main character, Gatsby, figuratively represents Christ. When Nick, Gatsby’s neighbor, asks if Daisy was driving the car that struck and killed Myrtle,Gatsby responded with, “Yes, but of course I’ll say I was” (Fitzgerald 143). Christ paid the ultimate sacrifice so that his people could be forgiven. This is comparable to how Gatsby will take the blame to keep Daisy out of trouble. Gatsby gains nothing from taking the blame for Daisy and if convicted, he will face jail time or the death penalty for something that was not his fault, just as Christ did.
Ruben Quintana Garcia Mr. Hudson English III September 29, 2015 Gatsby establishes an image of Jesus Christ The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is highly the most taught book by teachers and is also America’s best literary novels. There are several strong images that makes the reader believe that J. Gatsby was indeed the son of god referring to the bible, During the novel The Great Gatsby there is a religious connection with J. Gatsby, starting off with Nick Carraway the narrator; describing Gatsby. “’ll tell you God’s truth”.
Was Jay Gatsby a good man? to answer that one must know what defines a good man? is it success in life? Or is it living in the way the pleases a person the most? God through the bible has defined the true meaning of a good man.
Fitzgerald attempts to make Gatsby appear as a compassionate and humble man who cares for everyone but fails at doing so by showing his many flaws and actions that go against the very idea of him being a compassionate man. At first, Gatsby appears to be perhaps the only compassionate man in the book and maybe even comparable to Christ. You see him opening his home to everyone, and taking people in and being kind hearted to everyone he encounters but later the reader begins to discover that everything Gatsby does, has an ulterior motive. For example, his kindness to Nick first appears to be just him being kind to his neighbour, however the reader later realises that the only purpose in Gatsby’s kindness towards Nick was to get him to assist him come in to contact with Daisy and be reintroduced to her. “I’m going to make a big request of you to-day” (Fitzgerald 52).
This continues when Gatsby attempts to clear his name from Tom’s accusations against his character, but “with every word [Daisy] was drawing further and further into herself, so he gave that up, and only the dead dream fought on as the afternoon slipped away, trying to touch what was no longer tangible, struggling unhappily, undespairingly, toward that lost voice across the room”(134). Although he’s still holding on, Daisy’s role in his idealized life is over. Gatsby knows this when “he [stretches] out his hand desperately as if to snatch only a wisp of air, to save a fragment of the spot that she had made lovely for him. But it was all going by too fast now for his blurred eyes and he knew that he had lost that part of it, the freshest and the best, forever”(153). Gatsby’s realizes his Daisy is now gone forever.
Throughout The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the main focus of the plot appears to be on the erratic relationships that Nick, the narrator, observes over his time spent in West Egg. The main relationship however is the romance between Nick’s wealthy neighbor Jay Gatsby, and Nick’s cousin Daisy Buchanan, who is married to a rich man named Tom Buchanan. Over the course of the book, Gatsby’s “love” for Daisy leads both of them to pursue an affair that ends in the death of Gatsby, by a man who mistook him for his wife’s killer. The book, at first glance, attempts to make the romance of Gatsby and Daisy seem like a wonderful heart-wrenching reunion of two lovers after years of being apart from one another. However, there are many signs that
Nick prepares to return home and he takes a last look at Gatsby’s house and remembers Dutch sailors arriving in the New World. He connects the “green breast of the new world” with Gatsby and closes that like the first European arrivals to America, seeing Daisy's dock put Gatsby “face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.” For both the sailors and Gatsby, that was the last “transitory enchanted moment” when man “must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired.” Fitzgerald pronounces the American Dream. Gatsby’s dream was behind him “somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.”
Throughout the years, many books have alluded to The Bible. F. Scott Fitzgerald makes many comparisons to The Bible in his book, The Great Gatsby. While not everything in The Great Gatsby alludes to The Bible, there are many instances where the reader can make inferences. The audience makes viable connections between Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby and Jesus Christ in The Bible through their sacrificial love and betrayal. Growing up, Jay Gatsby sacrifices a lot for his immutable love for Daisy.
No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart.” Gatsby met Daisy years before when he was poor and stupid, so as boys do, he did what he could to try and make a life that she should want. Bootlegging, making himself proper and fancy, and then hosting huge parties all to impress this one woman. In the end, Gatsby was willing to go to jail for Daisy after the death of Myrtle, because of love. " He couldn't possibly leave Daisy until he knew what she was going to do.
Literary deaths always have a meaning, and the abrupt demise of various characters in The Great Gatsby is no exception. As tensions build and secret loves are proclaimed, characters begin to meet untimely deaths. F. Scott Fitzgerald uses Gatsby and Wilson's deaths, along with Gatsby's funeral, to symbolize the death of the American dream. Both men simply want to be successful and happy, and neither of them achieve their ultimate dreams.