Great Gatsby, Journal #6

1.      Chapter 6, Pages 97-111

2.      The sixth chapter begins with a newspaper man coming to Gatsby’s mansion to find out about Gatsby’s secrets. Nick then decides to tell us Gatsby’s real story. He says that Gatsby lied about everything, including his real name, which is James Gatz. So the story goes that a 17-year-old James Gatz rowed out on a boat to warn Dan Cody about the wind. Gatsby then spent the next five years with Cody as his steward, mate, secretary, and jailor. After Cody passes away, his will states that Gatsby is supposed to inherit his money but, somehow Cody’s mistress kept it all to herself. Now, it is directed back to a party at Gatsby’s where Sloane and Tom Buchanan stop by. During a conversation with Buchanan, Gatsby subtly states that he knows Daisy. Tom and Daisy come to Gatsby’s next party where Gatsby and Daisy sneak off to Nick front porch where they can talk privately. At dinner, Tom leaves to sit at another table and everyone, including Daisy, knows why. As they are leaving, Tom says that he wants to find out the real truth behind Gatsby, mostly how he got his money. After they leave, Gatsby tells Nick that he is concerned that Daisy won’t understand and Nick tells us that Gatsby wants her to tell Tom that she never loved him. At the end of this chapter, Nick says he is reminded of something but he doesn’t know what it is.

3.      Dan Cody

a.       “Cody was fifty years old then, a product of the Nevada silver fields, of the Yukon, of every rush for metal since seventy-five. The transactions in the Montana copper that made him many times a millionaire found him physically robust but in the verge of soft-mindedness, and, suspecting this an infinite number of women tried to separate him for his money.”

b.      Dan Cody is rich, old, lonely, adventure-seeking, easily played by women, and a heavy drinker.

c.       In this novel, Cody is Gatsby’s mentor in many ways. He took Gatsby under his wing for five years and Gatsby learned a lot from him. He especially learned not to drink. Nick tells us that it is because of Cody that Gatsby hardly ever drinks. Cody also played the role of showing Gatsby all of the wonders of the world by touring around in the yacht.

4.      “He wanted nothing less of Daisy than that she should go to Tom and say: ‘I never loved you.’ After she had obliterated four years with that sentence they could decide upon the more practical measures to be taken. One of them was that, after she was free, they were to go back to Louisville and be married from her house—just as if it were five years ago.”

a.       Here Nick explains that Gatsby wants Daisy to break it off with Tom and run away with him. This stood out to me because I thought that this is asking a lot of Daisy. If she were to tell Tom that she never loved him, five years of her life would go to waste, their “relationship” would be ruined, and Daisy’s child would have divorced parents. Gatsby, on the other hand, has nothing to lose. He spent the last five years building his social status all to get Daisy back.