The Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Well first off- St. Olaf College is referenced in Chapter 6, which is extremely exciting to me, as St. Olaf is the only college I will be applying to this fall. My mom, my fives aunts, two uncles, two grandparents, 3 great aunts, and 3 great uncles attended St. Olaf, so I basically am tied to St. Olaf by all means possible, and I have literally been obsessed with the idea of going there as long as I can remember. But anyway, back to the book!
"The truth was that Jay Gatsby, of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself. He was 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. So he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen year old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end" (Fitzgerald, 98)
I find it extremely interesting that Gatsby is called "a son of God", as if he is Jesus Christ. This is a huge and risky comparison made by the author, and well, Nick. I am actually left confused by this allusion. What I have been thinking is that Gatsby was made out of the likeness of his own father, being virtuous in his own character, and Gatsby created himself based on the goodness of his father and continued the work through the character he created of himself to which he applied himself faithfully. I do not fully understand what "business" of "His Father" he is referring to, but I am very interested in how this comparison fits into his character that is increasingly being revealed.
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