Gatz's mask of Gatsby backfires because he can never quite pull it off. In other words, the mask keeps slipping. Nick sees through him, Owl Eyes sees through him and so does Tom Buchanan. Nick falls under Gatsby's sway in spite of himself, feeling his charm and the compelling pull of his dream while recognizing that he's a fraud. He laughs at Gatsby for saying he went big game hunting in Europe, imagining him chasing...
Gatz's mask of Gatsby backfires because he can never quite pull it off. In other words, the mask keeps slipping. Nick sees through him, Owl Eyes sees through him and so does Tom Buchanan. Nick falls under Gatsby's sway in spite of himself, feeling his charm and the compelling pull of his dream while recognizing that he's a fraud. He laughs at Gatsby for saying he went big game hunting in Europe, imagining him chasing a tiger through Paris, and knows in his heart of hearts that Gatsby never attended Oxford. Owl Eyes notes the books in Gatsby's library, marvelling that they are real, but mentioning that the pages are uncut. Finally, Tom, the ultimate elitist, sees straight through Gatsby as a nobody from nowhere, not worth the time of day, calling him the guy who should be making deliveries at the back door. He gets annoyed at Gatsby's tendency to say "old sport" and, in his racist way, likens Gatsby's affair with Daisy to interracial marriage, saying that a person like Gatsby sleeping with his wife is a step down that slippery slope to racial mixing. Gatz, arguably, aims too high in going after Daisy Buchanan, and the result is his death.
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