The Great Gatsby: Chapter Six Key Points
Here, I have summarized key points from each page of the pdf copy of the novel.
● Pages 104: A reporter comes looking for Gatsby
○ Nick says that around this time, a reporter came around looking for
Gatsby. When Gatsby opened his door, the reporter asked Gatsby if
he had anything to say, to which Gatsby replied, “Anything to say
about what?”
■ The confused reporter told Gatsby that he “had heard
Gatsby’s name around his office in a connection which he
either wouldn’t reveal or didn’t fully understand.”
● It seems like this might have something to do with
whatever shady business Gatsby is involved with.
○ Nick understands why the reporter thought he could get an
interesting story out of Gatsby, because the rumors about him had
been growing all summer. He notes, “Gatsby’s notoriety, spread
about by the hundreds who had accepted his hospitality and so
become authorities on his past, had increased all summer until he
fell just short of being news.”
○ We learn that Gatsby’s real name is James Gatz.
● Pages 105-106: Flashback to Gatsby’s past
○ The narration flashes back to when Gatsby was a teenager and
readers learn the truth about his background
■ Gatsby changed his name when he was seventeen when he
first met Dan Cody (remember the photo of him from the last
chapter?).
■ Gatsby was on the lakeshore when he noticed Dan Cody’s
yacht anchored in a dangerous place. Gatsby rowed out to
warn him of the danger.
■ Gatsby’s real parents were unsuccessful farmers, who he never
really accepted.
■ It gets a little confusing, but basically James Gatz invented the
Gatsby persona to make it seem like he was more interesting
and came from a wealthier background than he really did.
■ Around the age of sixteen, Gatsby had worked the shores of
Lake Superior as a clam digger and salmon fisher. He “knew
women early” but came to dislike most of them.
■ He daydreamed often about living a much wealthier, more
grand life.
■ Gatsby attended college for two weeks before deciding it
wasn’t of interest to him and returning to work on Lake
Superior.
○ The narration switches over to give some background on Dan Cody
■ He made all of his money on gold, silver, and copper, and he
was a multimillionaire.
■ He was around fifty when young Gatsby met him and was
starting to go a little “soft in the mind”. Because of this, he was
always worried that people, especially women, were trying to
dupe him out of his money.
● Pages 107-108: Gatsby meets Dan Cody
○ To young Gatsby, “the yacht represented all the beauty and glamor
in the world”. It was everything he didn’t have but dreamed of having.
○ Dan Cody took a liking to Gatsby, and “found that he was quick, and
extravagantly ambitious.” He took on Gatsby as an employee and for
the next five years, they sailed around the world on his yacht.
■ Gatsby and Dan Cody might have continued their travels, but
“Ella Kaye came on board one night in Boston and a week later
Dan Cody inhospitably died.” (at this point, we don’t know
much about who this is or why he died, but it sounds
suspicious)
● Ella Kaye was a newspaperwoman who was romantically
involved with Dan Cody over the years, but it seems like
it might have been more out of greed than love.
○ Dan Cody’s excessive drinking was the reason that Gatsby never
really drank.
○ Dan Cody left Gatsby $25,000, but Ella Kaye cheated him out of it and
took all of Dan Cody’s money. All gatsby was left with was everything
that Dan Cody had taught him.
○ Nick explains that gatsby told him all of this much later in his
friendship, but Nick “put it down here with the idea of exploding
those first wild rumors about his antecedents, which weren’t even
faintly true.”
○ Nick says that he went a few weeks without seeing Gatsby, for Nick
was busy with work and spending time with Jordan.
■ He went over to Gatsby’s house one Sunday afternoon when
Tom Buchanan arrived with someone.
○
● Pages 109-110: Tom at Gatsby’s house
○ Tom arrived at Gatsby’s house on horseback, with a woman and
another man. Gatsby appears nervous to have Tom at his house.
Tom greets Gatsby as though they have never met, but Gatsby
reminds him that they met a few weeks ago when Nick and Gatsby
were having lunch at the restaurant in the city and spotted Tom.
■ Tom doesn't seem to remember, and then Gatsby aggressively
tells Tom that he knows his wife, Daisy. Tom doesn’t appear
interested and asks Nick where his house is.
○ They all have a drink, and Gatsby invites Tom, Mr. Sloane, and the
woman to stay for dinner. Instead, the woman invites Gatsby and
Nick to dinner with her. Clearly Mr. Sloane didn’t want Gatsby and
Nick coming, but everyone waits outside while gatsby takes a
moment to get ready.
● Page 111: Gatsby gets ditched
○ Tom also doesn’t want Gatsby to join them. He remarks, “My God, I
believe the man’s coming...Doesn’t he know she doesn’t want him?...
She has a big dinner party and he won’t know a soul there.”
■ Then, Tom wonders aloud where Daisy might have met Gatsby,
says that “ women run around too much these days to suit me.
They meet all kinds of crazy fish.”
○ All of a sudden, Mr. Sloane and the woman get on their horses and
he says to Tom, “we’re late. We’ve got to go,” and then to Nick, “Tell
him we couldn’t wait, will you?”
○ Next Saturday, Tom accompanies Daisy to Gatsby’s party, likely
because he didn’t want her “running around alone”.
■ Nick notes that this party felt different than the rest of
gatsby’s parties, perhaps because of Tom’s presence. He
explains that “There were the same people, or at least the
same sort of people, the same profusion of champagne, the
same many-colored, many-keyed commotion, but I felt an
unpleasantness in the air, a pervading harshness that hadn’t
been there before.”
● Pages 112-113: Gatsby’s party
○ Gatsby leads Nick Tom and Daisy around his party and tells them to
look around, and they will likely see many people that they have
heard about. Tom remarks that he doesn't recognize a soul and that
they don't go out very often.
■ Gatsby introduces Tom as “Tom Buchanan the polo player” to
belittle him while seeming like he is paying him a compliment.
■ Daisy is thrilled to be meeting so many famous people.
■ Daisy and Gatsby dance a little and stroll over to Nick’s house
to spend half an hour alone.
■ When it is time for dinner, Tom asks if it is alright if he sits at
another table where “A fellow’s getting off some funny stuff.”
● Sadly, Daisy realizes that Tom’s real interest lies in a girl
she describes as “common but pretty.” Nick realizes that
aside form her alone time with Gatsby, Daisy isn’t having
a good time anymore.
● Pages 114-116: The party goes on
○ For supper, Nick and Daisy are trapped at a table full of annoyingly
drunk people and Gatsby has gotten up to take a business call.
○ Daisy clearly isn’t very amused by the people at the party and their
wild antics. West Egg is not Daisy’s type of scene; it is all too wild for
her taste.
○ At the end of the night, Nick sits out front with Tom and Daisy as they
wait for their car, and Tom asks Nick, “Who is this Gatsby anyhow?...
Some big bootlegger?”
■ Nick asks Tom where he heard that, and Tom replies, “I didn’t
hear it. I imagined it. A lot of these newly rich people are just
big bootleggers, you know.” But Nick assures Tom that Gatsby
isn’t a bootlegger (remember, a bootlegger is someone who
illegally sells and distributes alcohol).
○ Tom talks badly about the party but Daisy tries to defend Gatsby.
She says, “Lots of people come who haven’t been invited...They simply
force their way in and he’s too polite to object.”
○ Tom seems suspicious of Gatsby and remarks, “I’d like to know who
he is and what he does...And I think I’ll make a point of finding out.’
■ Daisy responds, “‘I can tell you right now...He owned some drug
stores, a lot of drug stores. He built them up himself.”
○ Their car arrives, and Tom and Daisy leave the party.
● Page 117: Nick and Gatsby talk at the end of the party
○ Nick stays late at the party that night because Gatsby has asked to
speak with him at the end of the night.
■ When they talk, Gatsby tells Nick that Daisy didn't enjoy the
party.
■ He seems depressed and says to Nick, “‘I feel far away from
her...It’s hard to make her understand.”
○ Nick notes that Gatsby “He wanted nothing less of Daisy than that
she should go to Tom and say: ‘I never loved you.’” And in Gatsby’s
dream world, “After she had obliterated three 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.”
○ Gatsby continues telling Nick, “And she doesn’t understand,’ he said.
‘She used to be able to understand. We’d sit for hours——”
■ Nick tries to comfort him by saying, “‘I wouldn’t ask too much of
her...You can’t repeat the past.”
● But Gatsby counters him, “Can’t repeat the past?... Why
of course you can!”
○ In this scene, Gatsby is upset because Daisy isn't living up to how he
imagined her to be over these last five years. he built up unrealistic
expectations that no one would ever be able to fulfill, but now they
have led him to become disappointed in Daisy.
○ Nick explains why Gatsby wanted to repeat the past so badly: “He
talked a lot about the past and I gathered that he wanted to recover
something, some idea of himself perhaps, that had gone into loving
Daisy. His life had been confused and disordered since then, but if
he could once return to a certain starting place and go over it all
slowly, he could find out what that thing was….”
● Page 118: Flashback to Gatsby and Daisy’s past
○ Narration flashes back five years ago to when Gatsby and Daisy first
fell in love. The flashback is of a scene where Gatsby is walking Daisy
home late at night. They are about to kiss and Gatsby realizes that
“when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to
her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the
mind of God.”
■ In this quote, Gatsby is realizing that once he kisses and
subsequently falls in love with Daisy, she is going to be forever
linked in his mind to all of his visions and dreams for the
future. In a way, she represents all that he hopes to have one
day. He realizes that once he allows her to have a hold on him,
he will never be able to shake free of it.
