Theme Of Christ In The Great Gatsby

The Fall of Christ - Culminating

Since the first storytellers, religion has played an important part in developing both character and plot. From Ancient Greece to Egypt to Judaism to Christianity, the basic stories of human origins have stood the test of time. Classic books such as The Great Gatsby, The Stranger, and Lord of the Flies are full of religious parallels and imagery. Conceptually, main characters of each work--Gatsby, The Stranger’s Meursault, and Lord of the Flies’ schoolboys attempt to be Christ-like figures, but whose demise is ironically brought about by their own sins.

Central characters in each novel display Christ-like characteristics. In The Great Gatsby, title character Jay Gatsby shares many similarities with Christ.

When Daisy kills Myrtle while driving his car, Gatsby takes ultimate responsibility in order to protect his lover. When asked by his close friend and neighbour Nick if Daisy was driving, Gatsby responds, “Yes, but of course I’ll say I was” (Fitzgerald 137). He pays for this with his life when Myrtle's husband George shoots him (Fitzgerald 162) in retaliatory response. Gatsby dies for Daisy’s sin just as Jesus Christ died for the sins of the entire human race (1 Peter 2:24). Like Christ, he is a sacrificial lamb who died bearing the punishment deserved by his beloved. Other parallels also exist between the Gospel and Gatsby's life. In the end, Gatsby's friends desert him, as "nobody came" (Fitzgerald 174) to his funeral. Jesus’ friends also desert him during his final days. When questioned, the apostle Peter denies knowing Jesus three times (Luke 22:54-62). Both men were popular while alive but had their friends turn on them after their deaths. Likewise, Albert Camus conceived The Stranger's protagonist Meursault as a type of Christ figure. In the foreword, he writes, "[this is] the story of a man who, without any heroics, agrees to die for the truth... I had tried to draw in my character the only Christ we deserve" (Camus).

Like Christ, Meursault is silent in the face of his accusers during his trial. "The court scene evokes many aspects of the last judgment of Christ as Meursault can find nothing to say to defend himself" (Maher 279). Meursault exhibits "his identification with the sacrificial offering" (Ohayon 201) when he says (like Jesus's "It is finished"), "For everything to be consummated… I had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hate" (Camus 123). Like Gatsby, he lived hedonistically but met a very Christ-like end. In contrast, Lord of the Flies includes a more traditional Christ-like character in Simon, who “embodies a kind of innate, spiritual human goodness that is deeply connected with nature and, in its own way, as primal as Jack’s evil” (CCSE). His confrontation with the Lord of the Flies is often compared to Jesus' with the devil during his 40 day exile. First, it is worth noting that Beelzebub--the devil's name in the Bible--literally means "Lord of the Flies" (Catholic Encyclopedia). The pig-head harasses Simon, claiming he is, "just an ignorant, silly little boy," and that, "there isn't anyone to help [him]. Only [the Lord of the Flies himself]" (Golding 128). Just as Jesus had rejected Satan (Matthew 4:1-11), Simon also rejects

the devil in his encounter. Both stray from the savagery and temptation of man and stay true to their beliefs. Their deaths are unjust as well, as the societies that killed them have no legitimate rationale behind their actions. Simon is killed out of fear and adrenaline when the other boys mistook him for the beast (Golding 152-153). Jesus was killed for heading a radical new belief, and Simon was killed simply because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. In both situations, the group which killed them acted unjustly. Simon, though, did not command the following that Christ did. That role is filled by Jack in Lord of the Flies. He is voted as head of the hunters and is obsessively followed by his boys, who raise their spears together and announce "The Chief has spoken" (Golding 78) upon receiving orders. He and his group later separate themselves from the others (Golding 115), much like Jesus and his followers distanced themselves from mainstream Judaism. Though there are drastic differences between Meursault, Gatsby, and two polar opposites in Jack and Simon, all display Christ-like characteristics.

The concept of sin pervades all three works.

The “green light” (Fitzgerald 180) Gatsby sees from his house can be interpreted as representing envy. The term “green-eyed monster” refers to the sin of envy, as does "green with envy" (Bourn Creative), which makes sense given Gatsby’s major motivation is envy. While he is still James Gatz, his jealousy of the opulent lifestyles of the rich drives him to succeed. He is jealous of Tom for marrying Daisy, and spends his whole life throwing extravagant parties in hopes that Daisy will "walk through the door" (Fitzgerald 63). In pursuing a married woman, Gatsby is "coveting his neighbour's wife" and attempting to commit "adultery" (Exodus 20:1-17). In addition, other sinful activity definitely occurs during these parties. Chief among them is gluttony, "the excessive indulgence in food and drink" (Christianity Today). The parties are full of "hard-drinking people" (Fitzgerald 77) during the prohibition era. Sin is everywhere in the Great Gatsby, mirroring contemporary culture of the time. In the same way, the deadly sins abound in Lord of the Flies. While Jack has been out hunting, Ralph and Simon were the only two working to construct the shelters. Ralph argues the importance of finishing the shelters before anything else, including hunting. Jack rebuffs him, saying "'We need meat,'" as he "tried to convey the compulsion to track down and kill that was swallowing him up” (Golding 47). Here the reader sees the sin of sloth (or

laziness) in the fact that the other boys did not bother to help with creating shelter or hunting. Arguably, Jack is also an image of sloth. Catholic Answers Magazine states that sloth is “failure to fulfill one’s basic duties” and that “the workaholic, who’s on the job 24-7 and in the process neglects God and family, is the more typical manifestation of sloth in our culture” (Catholic Answers). Based on this definition, Jack is the typical manifestation of sloth, hunting 24-7 and neglecting the wants and needs of the other boys (i.e. his family). Jack also embodies anger, as the “compulsion to [kill]... was swallowing him up”. His anger has blinded him to rational thought, and negatively affects the other boys, as without Jack’s strength it will take a long time to build more shelter. Similarly to the boys in the Lord of the Flies, The Stranger’s affectless Meursault is the literary poster-child for sloth. The novel’s first line says it all: “Mother died today. Or was it yesterday?” (Camus 1). His attitude towards his mother’s death is nonchalant and uncaring, showing that he cannot be touched by anyone or anything. Later on, the story’s defining events are set in motion by Meursault's murder of the Arab on a sunny day. While going to get a drink of water, the foreign Arab uses a knife to shine the sunlight in Meursault's face. This drives Meursault to shoot and kill the Arab with a revolver. He simply says “the trigger gave”, before firing “four more times” at the dead body (Camus 24), showing no remorse for his actions. Interestingly, in Buddhism, the sun symbolizes the God Vishnu, who is believed to manifest in humans as “positive thoughts and emotions” (BBC). Therefore, the sun is a symbol for the feelings and emotions that Meursault cannot deal with. Paradoxically, Meursault, like Gatsby and the schoolboys, is very similar to Christ despite his immoral actions.

Through a close reading of the aforementioned texts, the reader can arrive at the conclusion that these Christ-like figures’ demise is brought about by their own sins. Clear is this in The Great Gatsby, where Gatsby’s defining moment of sacrifice is also a misdeed on his part. When Gatsby accepts responsibility for Daisy’s killing of Myrtle (Fitzgerald 137), he is lying about his involvement by taking the fall. Lying is considered a sin, and is forbidden by the Ten Commandments. While Jesus died for the sins of others, he did not lie to do so. Rather, he was falsely accused and accepted his execution because it was part of God’s plan. In fact, theologists have rifled through scripture and found zero instances of Jesus ever lying (Apologetics Press). If Gatsby had not lied, George would not have retaliated against him, and The Great Gatsby would live on. Furthermore, the entire murder scene would not have occurred if Gatsby had truly lived by Christian values. If he had not pursued the very married Daisy in the first place, this whole situation would have easily been avoided. In the same way, Meursault’s actions bring about his own untimely death. Obviously, his murder of the Arab is a sin, one that results in his arrest and eventual execution. Looking deeper into Meursault’s psyche, though, the reader sees that he cares little for human life. In fact, upon hearing about his mother’s death, he comments that it “doesn’t mean anything” (Camus 1). This stands in contrast to the Christian interpretation that "Human life is sacred… involves the creative action of God and it remains for ever in a special relationship with the Creator" (Catechism 2258). It is his lack of compassion for human life that allows him to so easily be drawn to murdering the Arab. His opposition to basic moral values is what is ultimately responsible for his ironically Christ-like death. In Lord of the Flies, Simon is a moral and spiritual character while Jack is a savage. In psychology, the id is the impulsive part of the human psyche, while the superego is the conscience, and the ego mediates between the two, coming up with realistic actions (Freud). So from a Freudian perspective, Simon is the superego of the schoolboys while Jack is the id. We can look at these characters as representing the struggle within every one of us and treat them as one and the same for the sake of this argument. In this case it is clear that Jack’s sins lead to Simon’s death. Jack is the one to whip up the other boys--the ego--into a frenzy of destruction. He leads the boys in the brutal slaughter of a pig, who shove a spear “right up her ass!” (Golding 138) after the pig is already long dead. The hunt is no longer about just having meat to eat—it's about literally bathing in their power over a helpless animal. The basis of Christianity is compassion, and mutilating an already-dead pig is anything but that. He also forces

In The Great Gatsby, The Stranger, and Lord of the Flies, there are characters whose story parallels that of Christ: Gatsby and Meursault as well as Simon and Jack. In each work there exists a society full of sin. And in each work, it is the Christ-like figure’s own sins that are responsible for his uprise and demise. All are charismatic yet deeply flawed characters who, in trying to be Christ-like, reveal their true human nature.