Home        Me          News        Pics         Friendz         Linkz

“The truth was that Jay Gatsby, of West egg, Long Island, sprang from his platonic conception of himself.”

            This quote appears in the midst of Jay Gatsby’s flashback at the point where Jay, known as James Gatz at the time, was beginning to build his career by saving Dan Cody’s yacht.  The passage with the included quote states that this was also when and how James Gatz changed his name to the familiar Jay Gatsby.  After saving the copper millionaire, Dan Cody, from a storm, James Gatz introduces himself as Jay Gatsby.  Linking back to the quote, Jay Gatsby had an idea of who he wanted to be growing up, and the chance to work with Dan Cody fulfilled his dream.  Through Dan Cody, Jay Gatsby paralleled his manner, style, and life with the millionaire who made his fortune through the gold and copper rushes of the late 1800s.  Dan Cody’s image was who Jay Gatsby wanted to be, and he dedicated his existence to the development of this idea.  The theme suggested through not only the quote, but also the entire passage is one’s yearning to be like something or someone that one most admires and revere. 

The theme, quote, and Gatsby’s fulfillment shows how he reinvents himself as “partly truth, partly fiction.”  Gatsby reinvents himself the same way a 17-year-old invents himself, and “to this conception, he was faithful to the end.”  His artificial demeanor proved to be his downfall at the end.  Wanting and being like Dan Cody, truly shows how thin Gatsby’s true side really was.  His Platonic conception of himself ultimately sprang from his desire to be a “somebody,” a person well respected such as Dan Cody.