Explain the following: “Gatsby’s death, like his life, is the product of an illusion.”

Question

English - The Great Gatsby

Answer 1

Gatsby's death, like his life, was a product of an elusive, outlived subconscious illusion. Despite all his efforts, Gatsby is unable to disown his past, and he continually suffers in the world of trauma. Any one who base his life on such things generally ends up destroying his own or her own's life. It is Gatsby's ideals and illusions created by his past that blind him to reality, and to the path of his life.  Illusion often clouds one’s perception of reality and makes it difficult to distinguish what’s real from what’s imaginary.

Answer 2

Since Gatsby's death comes at the end of his life, a life constructed around illusions, of course his death is based on the same set of illusions his life was based on. Put another way, just as Tom informs the hotel party that Gatsby's fortune came not from virtuous hard work (illusion) but from rum-running and bootlegging (reality), so Tom's implication of Gatsby as the driver who killed Myrtle Wilson (illusion) hides the reality that Daisy was actually driving at the time of the fatal accident that killed Myrtle (reality),

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