1. The Great Gatsby: Chapter 6

2. Chapter 6 Summary
Gatsby tells Nick that he is really James Gatz, a child of poor farmers & a college dropout. Gatsby created this new identity when he met Dan Cody, who helped Gatsby become the aristocrat he was “born to be”.
Tom and some of his friends drop by Gatsby’s house for drinks and they are all super rude to Gatsby, especially Tom. (Typical Tom.)
Tom and Daisy attend one of Gatsby’s parties and Daisy hates it. Gatsby proceeds to get super sad because Daisy hates it. (Typical Gatsby.)
The readers are treated to this oh-so-Fitzgerald flashback to when Gatsby and Daisy had their first kiss. This was the moment Gatsby became unhealthily obsessed with Daisy.

3. Syntax and Analysis
“James Gatz--that was really, or at least legally, his name. He changed it at the age of seventeen and at the specific moment that witnessed the beginning of his career--when he saw Dan Cody’s yacht drop anchor over the most insidious flat on Lake Superior.” (p.98).
Throughout “The Great Gatsby”, Fitzgerald has the use of dashes to give the reader insight to a particular subject, that the reader wouldn’t have known otherwise.

4. Syntax and Analysis
“ “Sit right down. Have a cigarette or a cigar.” He walked around the room quickly, ringing the bells.” (p.101)
The author explains that he walked around quickly, so the author uses a shorter sentence to symbolize the quick motion made by the character, Gatsby, hence the shorter sentence.

5. Syntax and Analysis
“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…
… One autumn night, five years before, they had been walking down the street when the leaves were falling, and they came to a place where there were no trees and the sidewalk was white with moonlight.” (p. 110)
In Chapter 6, Fitzgerald has the use of ellipses to symbolize that there is a flashback from a past memory. In this instance, he states earlier, in the same paragraph, “He talked a lot about the past”, then a flashback from the past is revealed to the readers.

6. Diction Analysis
“But his heart was in a constant, turbulent riot. The most grotesque and fantastic conceits haunted him in his bed at night. A universe of ineffable gaudiness spun itself out in his brain while the clock ticked on the washstand and the moon soaked with wet light his tangled clothes upon the floor. Each night he added to the pattern of his fancies until drowsiness closed down upon some vivid scene with an oblivious embrace. For a while these reveries provided an outlet for his imagination; they were a satisfactory hint of the unreality of reality, a promise that the rock of the world was founded on a fairy’s wings.
Abstract Diction & Elevated Language:
Chapter 6 describes and tells of Gatsby’s internal struggle and dream, neither of which is tangible. In this elaboration and description we learn about the mysterious life of Gatsby, some rumors that follow with him, and the dream that continues to grow and elaborate in his mind. The mysteriousness of Gatsby’s life as we learn of all the unknown and unconnected ends to the questions about who Gatsby is and what he does is what allows for this elevated language. The use of this elevated language also serves the purpose to connect the elaborateness of young Gatz’s dream for himself to the now Greatness that is Gatsby.
This is continuous throughout the chapter’s entirety as the chapter as a whole continues to describe in increasing detail the elaborated dream of Gatsby which continues to be more mysterious as we learn more and more about Gatsby’s unspecified means of getting his money.

7. Figurative Language and Analysis
Nick describes one of Gatsby’s parties as having, “the same many-colored, many-keyed commotion” as the other parties.
Fitzgerald uses this phrase to symbolize the noisy, diverse nature of the conversations and the people in general at Gatsby’s parties.

8. Figurative Language and Analysis
“Sometimes a shadow moved against a dressing room blind above, gave way to another shadow, an indefinite procession of shadows, that rouged and powdered in an invisible glass.”
Fitzgerald uses this imagery to portray the fluidity of the movements of the people inside the house as Nick views them from outside the house.

9. Figurative Language and Analysis
“The quiet lights in the houses were humming out into the darkness.”
Fitzgerald is using personification to portray the far-reaching lights of the LED bulb that can even travel through windows, and out into the streets where Gatsby and Daisy were standing.

10. Figurative Language and Analysis
“Out of the corner of his eye Gatsby saw that the blocks of the sidewalk really formed a ladder and mounted to a secret place above the trees - he could climb it.”
Fitzgerald uses the “sidewalk ladder” to symbolize Gatsby climbing the ladder to reach the American Dream.

11. Figurative Language and Analysis
“His mind would never romp again like the mind of God.”
Fitzgerald uses this simile to draw attention to the fact that Daisy would forever change what Gatsby’s goals and dreams were. She would solely encompass his thoughts.