The zombified retelling positions Gatsby as a character from gothic fiction: mysterious, tragic, and cursed to a crumbling mansion with the dead. His house, a former symbol of ambition, is now a haunted castle, half asylum, half cathedral to a lost dream. This account reimagines Gatsby as a cursed Byronic hero. Like classic gothic heroes, he is both romantic and isolated, bent on reclaiming something that is no longer human: Daisy, love, the past. His fixation is all the more tragic in this retelling, as he must fight against both literal and symbolic rot. The zombies also mirror Gatsby himself. He himself is resurrected from the dead James Gatz transformed into Gatsby. But in a world of real zombies, his coming back has another level of meaning. He is a man in limbo between life and death, between reality and fantasy. Soini’s gothic additions don’t just heighten the tension they deepen the pathos. Gatsby’s dream is not just impossible, it’s cursed.
May 7, 2025