Love

• Like Milton's Mammon in Paradise Lost, Gatsby is going to achieve attaining the courtly love of Daisy Buchanan through sheer materialistic means, through the power that he thinks he commands from his wealth. For a time, Gatsby's particular theology bears fruit, in that he is accepted by his followers and Daisy, but ultimately his congregation of party-goers deserts him. Gatsby's abandonment is summed up by Nick at the funeral when he states, "Nobody came" (p. 175)
• It is at the death of Gatsby that Fitzgerald becomes formulistic and orthodox in his symbolism. The rejected and soon to be betrayed Gatsby stands alone under Daisy's window, keeping a vain vigil over his shattered dream. “He [Gatsby] put his hands in his coat pockets and turned back eagerly to his

  scrutiny of the house, as though my presence marred the sacredness of the vigil (Reflecting when you should be sleeping). So I walked away and left him standing there in the moonlight watching over nothing (p. 146)”
• Although Gatsby and Daisy's affair is described to be somewhat idealised, Gatsby is described on a few occasions to have a more callous view of women.

  Chapter 6: "He knew women early" and "young virgins" were "ignorant" and "others" were "hysterical"
• Chapter 8: "She was the first "nice" girl he had ever known" Gatsby had been able to entertain many women due to his riches but Daisy is from a different class to him making her infinitely nicer than the "hysterical" girls of the lower class. Gatsby is a paradigm of romantic fidelity 'He took what he could get, ravenously and unscrupulously" He is truly committed to this woman. 
• Yet her vision does not align with Gatsby’s. Gatsby could have climbed the social ladder to the very top “if he was alone” and then begin to “suck on the pap of life” and “Gulp down the incomparable milk of wonder” But, he chooses to commit himself to Daisy, halting his progression to elitism.
• Gatsby tries to ultimately balance his commitment to Daisy with his dream of achieving the American Dream, however..

  "She vanished into her rich house, into her rich full life, leaving Gatsby - nothing" Precisely what unfolds at the end of the novel.

  Underscores the double irony of Daisy's niceness. Nice enough for Gatsby to be entertained and focused on, but nice enough also to leave him for someone more eligible.