Chapter 6, Gatsby

Narrative

• Rumours about Gatsby, journalists visit his house.

• Nick reveals Gatsby’s real past: James Gatz → Jay Gatsby.

• The meeting with Dan Cody that transforms Gatsby’s identity.

• Tom and the Sloanes visit Gatsby.

• Gatsby attends Tom and Daisy’s party and realises Daisy doesn’t fit his world.

• Nick reflects on the impossibility of repeating the past.

American Dream

“Jay Gatsby… sprang from his Platonic conception of himself.”

Analysis:

• Lexis: “Platonic” = ideal, pure form → the Dream as philosophical perfection.

• Figurative: Gatsby as self-created myth; metaphor of “sprang” suggests sudden birth.

• Narrative voice: Nick mythologises Gatsby, elevating his Dream.

• Structure: Positioned at start of chapter → sets origin myth.

“His parents were shiftless and unsuccessful farm people.”

• Lexis: “Shiftless”, “unsuccessful” → economic deficiency → motivation for the Dream.

• Narrative voice: Nick’s evaluative diction frames Gatsby’s rise as exceptional.

“He knew he was in Daisy’s house by a colossal accident.”

• Lexis: “Colossal accident” → Dream as fragile luck, not merit.

• Grammar: Heavy noun phrase foregrounds improbability.

“He wanted nothing less of Daisy than that she should go to Tom and say: ‘I never loved you.’”

• Lexis: Absolute negative (“nothing less”) → perfectionism of Dream.

• Grammar: Subordinate clause marks impossible condition.

“He was a son of God… and he must be about His Father’s business.”

(Reintroduced in Nick’s retelling)

• Figurative: Biblical metaphor → divine mission of self-creation.

• Structure: Recalls Chapter 4 → Dream built on sacred self-belief.

“His mind would never romp again like the mind of God.”

• Lexis: “Never” → finality; “God” → hyperbolic scale.

• Figurative: Simile elevates imagination to divine creativity.

Illusion vs Reality

“He invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen-year-old boy would be likely to invent.”

• Lexis: “Invented” → identity as fiction.

• Narrative voice: Nick’s ironising tone exposes illusion.

• Structure: Flashback reveals truth behind constructed persona.

“The truth was that Jay Gatsby… sprang from his idealistic imagination.”

• Grammar: Emphatic cleft structure (“The truth was…”) contrasts illusion vs reality.

• Lexis: “Idealistic” → naïve construction.

“A universe of ineffable gaudiness spun itself out in his brain.”

• Figurative: Metaphor of an imagined universe → fantasy world replacing reality.

• Lexis: “Ineffable” (unspeakable) = ineffable illusion; “gaudiness” = superficial luxury.

“She did not like the party.”

• Grammar: Simple declarative = blunt truth cutting through Gatsby’s illusions.

• Lexis: Plainness mirrors Daisy’s disconnection with Gatsby’s dream world.

“It is not a house at all… but a vast careless house.”

• Lexis: “Careless” → moral judgement; undermines glamour.

• Structure: Shift from Gatsby’s theatrical world → reality intrudes.

“He wanted to recover something… some idea of himself.”

• Lexis: “Idea” again emphasises illusion over reality.

• Narrative voice: Nick undermining Gatsby’s belief in recoverable past.

Time and the Past

“Can’t repeat the past?” he cried incredulously.”

• Lexis: “Cried” → emotional desperation.

• Grammar: Interrogative shows disbelief → refusal to accept temporal change.

“Why of course you can!”

• Grammar: Exclamative + high modality (“of course”) → certainty in the impossible.

• Structure: Signals tragic flaw.

“His dream must have seemed so close he could hardly fail to grasp it.”

• Figurative: Proximity metaphors = past imagined as reachable.

• Narrative voice: Nick’s retrospective irony → impossible temporal longing.

“A universe of ineffable gaudiness… spun itself out in his brain.”

Memory rewritten as fantasy → past re-made rather than recalled.

“It had gone beyond Daisy, beyond everything.”

Gatsby’s dream no longer matches past reality.

“He was consumed with wonder at her presence.”

Consuming past-present collision.

Love and Obsession

“He wanted nothing less of Daisy…”

• Obsessive absolutism.

“She blossomed for him like a flower.”

• Simile: romantic idealisation.

• Lexis: “Blossomed” → natural beauty, but also temporariness.

“It excited him, too, that many men had already loved Daisy.”

• Irony: Possessive obsession intensified by competition.

• Lexis: “Excited” → desire mixed with rivalry.

“He knew he was in Daisy’s house by a colossal accident.”

• Romantic fatalism.

“There must have been moments… when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams.”

• Grammar: Modal “must have” → Nick inferring → cracks in obsession.

“He looked at her like she had never been looked at before.”

Hyperbolic romantic gaze.

Class and Social Barriers

“She was appalled by West Egg… its raw vigour.”

• Lexis: “Appalled” → strong disdain; class repulsion.

• Narrative voice: Nick stresses Daisy’s elitism.

“She was offended by the people who frequent Gatsby’s house.”

• Class-coded judgement.

“A brewer had built the house in the period of feudal silhouette.”

• Lexis: “Feudal” → pseudo-aristocracy; critique of Gatsby’s imitation of old wealth.

“Tom was evidently perturbed at Daisy’s running around alone.”

• Lexis: “Perturbed” → patriarchal class control.

“He’s just a man named Gatsby.”

• Grammar: Minimising noun phrase → reduces Gatsby’s status.

“She never intended running off with him.”

• Class constraints prevent romantic escape.

Crime and Corruption

“A reporter… demanded vigorously to know who he was.”

• Gatsby’s notoriety = suspicion of criminality.

“He knew that when he kissed this girl…” (Nick’s reflection)

Implied that Gatsby’s success is entangled with corruption.

“That’s Mr Sloane’s woman.”

• Class/corruption of morals.

“Tom was evidently perturbed at Daisy’s running around alone.”

Tom’s control linked to his own corrupt affairs.

“He must have felt he had lost the old warm world.”

Loss of glamorous illusion → corruption underneath.

“He took what he could get, ravenously and unscrupulously.” (Gatsby’s youth)

• Lexis: “Ravenously”, “unscrupulously” → moral corruption in rise to wealth.

Identity and Reinvention

“Jay Gatsby… sprang from his Platonic conception of himself.”

Definitive identity reinvention.

“James Gatz—that was really, or at least legally, his name.”

• Grammar: Parenthetical “or at least legally” → distinction between legal vs chosen identity.

“He invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby…”

Identity as deliberate fiction.

“The truth was…”

Nick exposes fabricated persona.

“That’s Mr Sloane’s woman.”

Tom categorises women by identity and ownership.

“He was left with his singularly appropriate education.”

Gatsby’s transformation through Dan Cody.

SYMBOLISM

• Dan Cody → corrupt version of American meritocracy.

• Daisy → ideal, unattainable dream.

• Gatsby’s house → façade of aristocracy.

• Parties → superficiality of class aspiration.

• “Feudal silhouette” → imitation of old world.

• Warm world → emotional identity.

NARRATIVE VOICE

• Nick’s retrospective distance (“The truth was…”)

• Myth-making tone (“Platonic conception”)

• Early unreliability (sympathetic bias for Gatsby)

• Evaluative lexis (“colossal accident”)

• Blending fact + interpretation (free indirect discourse)

STRUCTURE

• Flashback / analepsis → Gatsby’s origin story

• Narrative pacing: from myth to disillusionment

• Contrast scenes: Gatsby’s romantic illusions vs Tom's world

• Turning point: Daisy’s dislike of Gatsby’s party

• Cyclical motif of repeating past

• Shift from communal parties → private emotional crisis

LEXIS & SEMANTIC FIELDS

• Mythic lexis (“God”, “Platonic”, “colossal”)

• Impropriety (“unscrupulous”, “ravenous”)

• Class markers (“feudal”, “brewer”, “appalled”)

• Aspirational language (“conception”, “universe”)

• Moral lexicon (“truth”, “scrupulous”)

• Emotional intensity (“incredulously”, “perturbed”)

GRAMMAR AND SYNTAX

• Cleft sentences (“The truth was that…”)

• Exclamatives (“Of course you can!”)

• Declaratives for moral commentary

• Polysyndeton in Nick’s lyrical passages

• Parenthetical clauses exposing truth

• Temporal markers emphasising past/present tension