Jay Gatsby's mother is never mentioned in the novel. It is only his father whom we meet, at the end of the novel, during Gatsby's funeral. It is from Henry C. Gatz that we learn that Gatsby's true name was James Gatz, and that his father referred to him as "Jimmy."
The absence of any maternal reference is interesting. Moreover, the introduction of the senior Gatz who "arrived from a town in Minnesota" does not clarify all of our questions about Gatsby. We know that he did not come from much, and that he bought his father the house in which the elder man lived.
Literary critics have wondered, too, if Gatsby may have been Jewish, due to Gatz being a Semitic name. Because we do not know his mother, it is not clear if he is Jewish. However, the prevalence of anti-Semitism at the time would explain his choice to change it.
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