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