90 THE FAITHFUL READER Gatsby eventually tells Nick the truth about himself, that he was originally James Gatz, the son of poor farmers in North Dakota. But he had grand ambitions for life and fanciful imaginations to be someone important. One day, Gatz rescued rich sailor, Dan Cody, and Cody took him on as a protégé, teaching him how to be someone completely new: Jay Gatsby. Gatsby’s entire life is a façade of his own determination to make something of himself. And what Gatsby wants now more than anything is for Daisy to tell Tom that she never loved him. She is ultimately unable to do this. She’s unable to trade stability with Tom and their daughter for her passionate love with Gatsby, even though she had led him along that she would. Daisy, who had come from a rich family and had dozens of suitors throughout her life before marriage, is even more superficial than Gatsby, a man who had made up his entire life: “She vanished into her rich house, into her rich, full life, leaving Gatsby—nothing. He felt married to her, that was all.” In the events that follow, Tom’s mistress is killed in a hit and run, Tom frames Gatsby even though Daisy was driving, and Gatsby is murdered in his home, all while thinking that Daisy is going to change her mind and call him. After his death, Nick is left to handle all the reporter phone calls and arrangements because he can’t stand to leave Gatsby’s side. “I wanted to get somebody for him,” he recalls. “I wanted to go into the room where he lay and reassure him: ‘I’ll get somebody for you, Gatsby. Don’t worry. Just trust me and I’ll get somebody for you—’” No one comes. The Green Light: The Lie of Prosperity and Promise Until the very end, Gatsby continues watching the green light at the end of the Buchanan’s dock across the water, watching for Daisy. He never stops believing that he can make his own future, that anything is possible if he works hard enough: “He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him.” And it is all for naught at the end, and Nick is the one who deals with the fallout of losing his friend. “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy,” he says. “—they smashed up
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