The Great Gatsby Summary and Analysis Chapter 6
A young reporter arrives from New York at Gatsby’s mansion to learn the truth about his identity and past, but Gatsby doesn’t answer his questions. His fame for him has grown by the number of people who attended his parties that summer.
The narrator goes back in time to the Gatsby story. Nick says that he has a “platonic conception of himself” (2011: 135) that leads him to invent his own story and stay true to it until the end. His real name is James Gatz and he comes from a North Dakota country family. James Gatz changed his name from him at age 17 after seeing Dan Cody’s yacht, a millionaire who had made his fortune in the Yukon gold rush. The protagonist’s dreams of personal growth intensified upon meeting Cody. They traveled on his yacht through the West Indies and Barbary for five years, until Cody died and left Gatsby an inheritance that he could never collect. The narrator clarifies that Gatsby tells him this later, but decides to reveal it at this point in the narrative “to disprove those first wild rumors about his background of him” (2011: 138).
After a few weeks without seeing him, Nick goes to Gatsby’s house and, at that moment, Tom Buchanan arrives with a couple from East Egg, Mr. Sloan, and his wife, after riding a horse. Gatsby receives them, happy, and offers them drinks and cigarettes. Nick, on the other hand, is unsettled by the meeting between Tom and Gatsby.
Tom and Daisy attend the Gatsby party the following Saturday. Tom is uncomfortable during the night and is rude to Daisy. Daisy and Gatsby dance and then cross over to Nick’s house and talk for half an hour while Nick makes sure no one sees them. Nick gets drunk and states: “about the last thing I remember was standing with Daisy watching the film director and his Star of him” (2011: 145). Daisy doesn’t feel comfortable at West Egg. Nick describes her as “appalled by her raw vigor” (2011: 145). Tom asks Nick if Gatsby is a smuggler and explains that “a lot of these nouveaux riches are just big smugglers” (2011:146). He tells Nick that he’ll find out and then refers to the party people as a “zoo” (2011: 146).
Nick explains that what Gatsby wants is for Daisy to tell Tom: “I never loved you” (2011:148). When Nick suggests to Gatsby that he can’t repeat the past, he replies, “Of course, you can!” (2011:148).
Analysis
The narrator of the novel evidence, in the sixth chapter, his present enunciation: “He told me all this much later, but I put it here with the idea of denying those first crazy rumors about his background” (2011:138). Nick writes the story two years after that summer of 1922. He shows that he is still loyal to Gatsby and has an appreciation for him. For that reason, he wants to dispel the rumors about him. At the same time, he exposes a certain control in the image that readers must have of Gatsby. He thus manipulates the intrigue of the novel and recounts Gatsby’s true part of it.
Nick explains that Gatsby forms a “platonic conception of himself” at the age of 17 (2011:135). That is, he invents an ideal version of himself because he does not want to live the real one. For Jimmy Gatz, Jay Gatsby is the manifestation of an ideal projected by a boy who wants to be rich and successful. As Nick explains, “His parents of him were lazy, failed country folk: his image of him had never really accepted them as parents” (2011: 135). Jimmy does not accept his present from him and therefore builds a new future: he sets up a new identity. In this sense, Gatsby embodies the American dream: he is dissatisfied with his material conditions, and he creates the life he desires, which includes economic success and social advancement.
The archetype of the “man who builds himself” is a particular type of the American dream that characterizes men who are successful on their own terms, without the help of external conditioning. Benjamin Franklin, one of the founding fathers of the United States, is considered the greatest example of a man who builds himself. Originally, this myth refers to men who, like Gatsby, are born in poor environments or with few possibilities and manage to get out of poverty and excel in their work areas. They tend to be characterized as persevering men, who work hard and who do not have inherited fortunes or class privileges that facilitate their arrival in positions of power. Gatsby is an iconic character of this type of archetype in American literature,
In this sense, Gatsby belongs to the class of the “nouveau riche”. This is a pejorative term that refers to people who previously belonged to lower social classes and managed to climb the social pyramid thanks to the construction of a fortune. This money allows them to access a level of consumption of goods and services similar to those of the upper classes. However, the novel clearly distinguishes between the “new rich” and the aristocrats, who have not only a fortune but also a system of values, contacts, and traditions belonging to the historically rich and powerful classes. Gatsby’s meeting with Tom Buchanan and the Sloans reveals the contempt that aristocrats feel for the “nouveau riche” and the hostility that exists towards the “nouveau riche”. music journey
