Gatsby Chapter 6 Journal

Summary: A reporter arrives from New York to interview Gatsby. He doesn't really understand why, until the reporter tells him about his fame and the mysteriousness surrounding his life. Nick goes into the big spiel about Gatsby's life. He starts with how James Gatz changed his name to Jay Gatsby, and first met millionaire-by-mining Dan Cody on his yacht on Lake Superior. Nick goes back and talks about how he was born a nobody in North Dakota, but had a large imagination and had created Jay Gatsby by the time he was seventeen. Young Gatsby worked as a clam-digger and salmon-fisher to make a living and was popular with the ladies, but really only cared about one thing: becoming the man in his mind. Gatsby attended Lutheran College of St. Olaf, but stayed there only two weeks before going back to Lake Superior, where he met up with 50-year-old Dan Cody. Cody took a shining to Gatsby (for that was who James Gatz now was), and invited him on his yacht, the Tuolomee, taking him to the West Indies and the Barbary Coast. Gatsby lived with Cody for five years, circling the continent three times, working almost every position on the boat, including jailor. One night in Boston, the yacht picked up Ella Kaye, reporter and gold-digger. Cody died a week later, and instead of Gatsby getting his inheritance, Kaye got it all through some legal reasons Gatsby didn't understand. After telling Nick all this, Gatsby didn't see him for several weeks, as Nick was gallivanting about in New York with Jordan often. He payed a visit to Gatsby though one Sunday and on that day Tom, along with the Sloanes, rode up on their horses to Gatsby's for a drink. Gatsby and Tom remembered each other, and Gatsby mentioned his meeting Daisy at Nick's. Gatsby was polite towards them, and invited them over for dinner, but the declined and instead invited Gatsby over for dinner out of obligation. They leave before Gatsby is ready however, because they are having a dinner party full of families of "old money", and Gatsby wouldn't fit in. Before departing, Tom makes a comment to Nick about how women "run around too much" these days. A week later, Nick, Daisy, and Tom attend one of Gatsby's parties, and the normal party mood has changed to a sort of harsh unpleasantness. Tom and Daisy don't recognize many of the party-goers, but Gatsby introduces them, calling Tom "the polo player". They see a famous movie star and her director under a plum tree. Daisy and Gatsby dance together, and then go over to sit on Nick's porch for half an hour before supper, leaving Nick "on guard" in the garden. At dinner, Tom eats with a group of party-goers that includes a cute young woman that he seems to have taken a liking to. Daisy gives him a little gold pencil in case he needs to write any addresses down, a stab at his adultery. Daisy is obviously not having a good time, and when Gatsby goes to take a phone call, Nick and Daisy sit themselves down at a table full of drunks, having a conversation about how one girl, Miss Baedeker's, head got stuck in the pool. After leaving the table, Nick and Daisy watch the director and actress under the plum tree again, they seem different from the other partyers, and Daisy says she likes the actress. Daisy is appalled by the party, and Nick sits with her and Tom as they wait for their car. Tom asks who Gatsby really is and if he is a bootlegger, because many "new money" people got rich that way, and Nick denounces him. Daisy tells Tom that she enjoyed the party, just to spite him, and starts to sing with the music in her enchanting voice. Daisy makes a disapproving comment about how most of the people weren't even invited. Tom says he is going to find out who Gatsby really is, and Daisy tells him he got rich on a drug-store chain business. Their limousine drives up, and Tom and Daisy leave. Daisy is worried as she says goodbye to Nick that some other girl will get ahold of Gatsby at the party and erase those five years of devoted waiting. Nick waits until Gatsby returns and they discuss Daisy not liking the party. Gatsby wishes Daisy would just tell Tom the she never loved him and run off with Gatsby himself and get married back in Louisville. Nick tells him that you can't repeat the past, and Gatsby argues against Nick, saying he is going to make everything back to the way it was five years ago. Gatsby then reminisces about those many years ago, remembering his and Daisy's first kiss on that fateful nightwalk many autumns ago.

Allusions: Lutheran College of St. Olaf, the waltz Three O'Clock in the Morning.

Daisy's "green card": Symbol or motif of green?