Homework #6 (Chapter 6)

  Gatsby’s memoir about his past.

I am Jay Gatsby. Oh, no, I should say my name is James Gatz. This was really, or at least my legal name. I was born in North Dakota. My parents were shiftless and unsuccessful farm people, but in my imagination had never really accepted them as my parents at all.

 I had an ambitious heart and high expectations for the future. When I turned seventeen, I changed my name to Jay Gatsby. For over a year I had been beating my way along the south shore of Lake Superior as a clam digger and a salmon fisher or in any other capacity that brought me food and bed. An instinct toward my future glory had led me to the small Lutheran college of St. Olaf in southern Minnesota. I stayed there two weeks, dismayed at its ferocious indifference to the drums of my destiny, to destiny itself, and despising the janitor’s work with which I was to pay my way through. Then I drifted back to Lake Superior.

My new life began on the lake When I came back to Lake Superior, I was still searching for something to do on the day that Dan Cody’s yacht dropped anchor in the shallows along shore. When I saw Cody’s yacht, I was resting on my oars and looking up at the railed deck, that yacht represented all the beauty and glamour in the world. At this time, I met Cody. 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 Montana copper that made him many times a millionaire found him physically robust but on the verge of soft mindedness, and suspecting this an infinite number of women tried to separate him from his money. At any rate Cody asked me a few questions and found that I was quick, and extravagantly ambitious. A few days later Cody took me to Duluth and bought me a blue coat, six pair of white duck trousers and a yachting cap. Cody and me sailed around the world three times over the next five years. During the time, I served as a steward, mate, skipper, and secretary for Cody. I chose then to abstain from alcohol forever after witnessing the destructive behaviors of Cody during his period of drunkenness. I even had to jail he on occasion to prevent him from committing dangerous acts. When the Tuolomee dropper anchor in Boston, Ella Kaye, one of Cody’s lovers, joined the crew. Unfortunately, Cody died a week after she had boarded the yacht of mysterious and unknown causes. When Cody died, I inherited $25,000, but I didn’t get it because Ella Kaye swindled me out of it in court.

In my life, there was another important thing influenced me. Before going to Europe for the Great War, I met Daisy which whom I became infatuated. I still remember five years before, one autumn night, Daisy and me had been walking down the street when the leaves were falling, and we came to a place where there were no trees and the sidewalk was white moonlight. We stopped here and turned toward each other. That night was a beautiful night. My heart beat faster and faster as Daisy’s white face came up to my unutterable visions to her perishable breath, my mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So I waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning fork that had been struck upon a star. Then I kissed her. At my lips’ touch she blossomed for me like a flower and the incarnation was complete. I never forgot that moment I kissed Daisy.

Unfortunately, when I went to war, Daisy left me. She married to the other man. Though this, I believe Daisy still loved me. I know this. After the war, I built my fortune partially through illegal activities, like gambling and crime. Now I become very rich, I own a large house. I am sure I can win Daisy back because I have money and I love her.