The Great Gatsby Theme of Mortality

The Great Gatsby culminates in death; one accidental death, one murder, and one suicide. Death takes all forms in Gatsby, including the metaphorical. By creating a new name and life for himself, Gatsby kills his old self. When his love fails to live up to his standards, so dies his idealized conception of her. Our narrator is constantly addressing the idea of mortality as he feels himself getting older and older while the text progresses. The various characters’ obsession with the past, as well as Nick’s belief that life draws people back to the past, is also an indication of the nearly universal fear of death.

1. Why does no one come to Gatsby’s funeral?
2. Whose fault is it that Gatsby died? His own? Tom’s? Daisy’s? Wilson’s?
3. The characters in The Great Gatsby never explicitly discuss death or life after death. Why do you suppose they neglect these topics? What does it say about them?
4. What is the effect of Nick realizing he has turned thirty in the midst of Gatsby and Tom’s fight over Daisy?
5. Speaking of, check out those times when Nick refers to his age. He later refers to his being thirty with the jaded tone that he is "too old to lie" to himself. What is it about aging that bothers Nick so much?
6. Before Myrtle’s death, Nick says that they "drove on toward death through the cooling twilight." Literally, this means they are driving towards the scene of Myrtle’s death. But in what other ways are they driving toward death? Might they also be driving to Gatsby’s impending death? Or (gasp) to their own?
7. How did the death of Dan Cody interact with the birth of Jay Gatsby, and the death of James Gatz?
8. Did the real man behind the mask die when Jay Gatsby died, or when James Gatz died?

Even though death is part of the overarching story arc of The Great Gatsby for all characters in the novel, only Nick Carraway is willing to confront the reality of death and its meaning for his own life.