Jay Gatsby

What would you want people to remember about you?

I would rather be remembered for my hope than for the size of my house. The parties made my name familiar to people who knew almost nothing about me, and very few came when there was nothing left to enjoy. Nick knew more than most about what I had tried to build. I would want the effort to matter, though I cannot separate it from my mistakes. I reached beyond my beginnings, but I asked wealth and determination to accomplish things neither could promise.

Why should readers still care about your story?

I know nothing of the world beyond the end of my story. What I can speak of is the distance between appearing successful and having a place where one truly belongs. My house was full, yet the crowd offered little companionship when everything fell apart. I believed a splendid enough life could overcome the past and persuade others to accept me. That belief carried me far, but it also kept me from seeing what stood before me. There is something worth considering in the difference between hope and certainty.

What advice would you give someone chasing a dream like yours?

I would ask whether you are pursuing a future or trying to make the past obey you. I scarcely allowed myself that question. Every sign of success seemed to prove that the rest must follow, if only I worked harder at becoming Jay Gatsby. Yet a house cannot guarantee belonging, and determination cannot decide another person's choices. Keep room in a dream for what is actually before you. I gave mine so much authority that I could no longer tell where hope ended and illusion began.

What part of your past do you most regret?

What weighs most heavily is how thoroughly I made the past into a promise about the future. I wanted to leave James Gatz behind, yet I would not leave behind the life I believed I could recover with Daisy. Those wishes pulled in opposite directions, though I treated them as one grand plan. I regret trusting the outward signs of success so completely. By the time my dream collapsed, I had built a magnificent setting for a life that wealth alone could never bring into being.

What did you believe money could buy you?

I believed money could buy me a place where nobody would look past me and see the poor farmer's son I had been. Dan Cody had shown me how grand a life could become, and I wanted that grandeur to seem natural around me. The house, the parties, the crowds were meant to make my new name substantial. I mistook the appearance of belonging for belonging itself. By the end, a crowded garden and an almost empty funeral had shown how far apart those things could be.

Is taking the blame for someone you love a just thing to do?

I took the blame to protect Daisy, but I cannot say that wanting to protect someone makes a false account just. Myrtle was dead, and George Wilson came to believe I was responsible. That mistake ended with his shooting me and then himself. My intention did not make those consequences harmless. I had spent so much of my life arranging appearances around a hope that I failed to give the truth its proper weight. I can explain why I accepted the blame without pretending it put matters right.

What kept you waiting for another chance with Daisy?

I kept waiting because I had made that chance the purpose of everything else. Leaving poverty behind, taking a new name, acquiring the house across the bay: each seemed to bring the life I wanted a little nearer. To stop waiting would have meant admitting that all this effort could not command the future. I was better at enlarging a hope than questioning it. Even when the distance remained, I treated it as something still to be crossed, rather than a sign that my imagined future might never become real.

Why did you need others to believe your account of your past?

I wanted Jay Gatsby to stand before people without James Gatz showing through. My poor beginnings did not fit the place I wanted among the wealthy, so I offered an account that made privilege seem part of my history. There were real things in it: military service, decorations, a brief time at Oxford. But I wanted those things to support a grander impression. Nick's doubts mattered because they threatened more than a story. They threatened the belief that I had successfully become the man I meant to be.

Can changing your name really make you a different person?

I changed my name because I could imagine a life larger than the one James Gatz had been given. When I met Dan Cody, I introduced myself as Jay Gatsby, and the name became part of my attempt to become someone else. It helped me step toward that imagined future, but it could not erase where I had begun. I acquired wealth, a mansion, and an impressive account of myself. Still, the need to prove I belonged remained. A new name could carry my ambition; it could not complete the transformation by itself.

Why wasn't becoming rich enough to make your dream come true?

I treated wealth as though it could open every door, including the door back into the past. It gave me a mansion across the bay, crowded parties, and the appearance of a place among the rich. But those things could not make other people live according to my hopes. Tom's position did not disappear because I had money, and the years I wanted to recover had not stood still. I had gained the means to display my dream, old sport, without gaining the power to make it true.

What does the green light across the bay mean to you?

I looked across the bay and saw more than a light. It marked the distance between the life I had built and the life I still hoped to reach. Daisy was across that water, and with her was the past I wanted to recover. The light gave that hope something small and visible to fasten upon. My mansion could stand behind me in all its grandeur, yet my attention went outward. What mattered always seemed just beyond what I possessed, close enough to imagine reaching and still beyond my grasp.

How does the valley of ashes contrast with your wealthy world?

I lived among bright parties, great houses, and cars carrying people toward their pleasures. The valley of ashes showed what that brightness left out: gray dust, dumped cinders, and people working far from the ease I admired. George Wilson's garage belonged to that other world, though the road connected it to ours. I had wanted to escape poverty so completely that wealth seemed like another kind of existence. Yet Myrtle's death and George's mistaken belief brought those worlds together terribly. The distance between them offered no real protection from their consequences.

What breaks down during your confrontation with Tom in the city?

What breaks down is my certainty that I can recover the past simply by making my present grand enough. I have built a fortune, a house, and an account of myself that I want others to accept. In the city, facing Tom, those things cannot secure what I have hoped for. His position and Daisy's life with him stand against my dream. I have treated hope almost as a promise, you see, and the confrontation exposes how little power that promise really has.

Why do you take the blame after Myrtle's fatal accident?

I take the blame because I want to protect Daisy. At that moment, keeping her from harm matters more to me than safeguarding my name or everything I have built in West Egg. I have made so much of my life depend upon recovering the past that I cannot simply put that hope aside when the cost becomes terrible. Taking the blame is not the same as being responsible for what happened to Myrtle. But my first thought is of Daisy, not of what the consequences might be for me.

What do the rumors at your parties reveal about your guests?

The rumors tell me that my guests know my house rather better than they know me. They enjoy the music, the lights, and the crowded evenings, but the man who provides them remains a mystery. Most arrive without an invitation, and uncertainty gives them something to discuss. I wanted a place among the wealthy, yet opening my doors to them does not make me one of their own. Nick takes the trouble to learn something of my life. That is quite different from merely coming to a party.

How does your story expose the costs of the American dream?

I begin by wanting to escape poverty and become someone other than James Gatz. Wealth seems to offer not merely comfort, but admission to a life where my hopes might be fulfilled. I acquire the mansion and draw the crowds, yet neither gives me the belonging I seek. My fortune is shadowed by suspected bootlegging, and my dream collapses despite everything I have gathered. The cost is that I make success carry a promise it cannot keep: that enough money can restore the past.

Why did you leave St. Olaf College after only two weeks?

I left St. Olaf after two weeks because I disliked working as a janitor. That is the plain reason, though it belongs to a larger dissatisfaction with the life from which I came. I was the son of poor farmers in North Dakota, and I wanted to become someone different. The work at college did not fit the future I imagined for myself. Leaving did not itself give me that future; my meeting with Dan Cody would open a very different door.

How did warning Dan Cody about the weather change your life?

In 1907, at Lake Superior, I warned Dan Cody about weather threatening his yacht and introduced myself as Jay Gatsby. That meeting gave my chosen name a place in a new life. Instead of remaining within the narrow circumstances of my beginnings, I spent five years traveling with a wealthy man as his protégé. Cody brought me close to the kind of wealth I admired. The warning was a small act, but what followed changed the scale of everything I thought possible for myself.

What did five years with Dan Cody teach you about wealth?

Those five years brought me close to a wealthy life in a way my childhood never could. Traveling with Dan Cody as his protégé, I came to value the world his money opened. I cannot give you a neat account of particular lessons beyond that, but the direction is clear: I admired wealth and wanted a place among those who possessed it. Yet Cody's death also left a harder lesson. Being near a fortune, even being named to receive part of it, did not make it mine.

Why did you never receive the inheritance Dan Cody left you?

Dan Cody left me money when he died in 1912, but Ella Kaye cheated me out of the inheritance. I cannot give you further particulars about how she accomplished it. What matters in my life is the distance between what Cody intended me to have and what I actually received. I had spent five years traveling with him and learning to admire his wealthy life, yet I came away without the money he left me. That promised beginning did not become the fortune I later possessed.

How did you first meet Daisy in Louisville?

I met Daisy while I was training near Louisville, Kentucky. I was still far from the man who would own that great house in West Egg, and my beginnings were much poorer than the life I wanted to enter. I cannot give you a fuller account of our first introduction. What matters is that Louisville became the place I kept returning to in my thoughts. I made that part of my past carry an extraordinary weight in my future.

What did you achieve during your military service in Europe?

I served in Europe, rose to the rank of major, and received decorations for valor. Those were genuine achievements, whatever doubts surrounded the rest of my account of myself. When I spoke to Nick about my past, I showed him a medal as evidence. I wanted him to see something substantial behind the rumors. Yet military distinction and social acceptance were different things. What I had earned in service could not settle every question about where I came from or where I belonged.

What is the truth behind your claim to have studied at Oxford?

I did attend Trinity College, Oxford, briefly in 1919. That much was true. But a short period at Oxford was not the same thing as the whole privileged history I wanted Nick to accept. I placed it beside my military honors and my account of family wealth, hoping the pieces would make a convincing whole. My beginnings were with poor farmers in North Dakota. Oxford belonged to my experience, but it could not make those beginnings different from what they were.

How did Daisy's letter about her marriage shape your plans?

Daisy's letter told me she had married Tom Buchanan. I answered that change in my circumstances by setting myself a great task: I would acquire wealth and influence, and become someone whose place could no longer be questioned. I treated the past as something I might recover if I built the right future around it. The mansion, the parties, and the account I gave of myself all served that purpose. I did not understand how much I was asking success to undo.

Why did you choose a mansion across the bay from Daisy?

I chose that mansion because Daisy lived across the bay. The distance mattered to me more than the grandeur of the house, though I wanted grandeur too. From West Egg, the life I hoped to enter seemed close enough to reach. I filled my grounds with music, lights, and strangers, making my house a place people would notice. Yet the water marked more than a stretch of distance. I could buy a house opposite that world without securing a place inside it.

What connects your fortune to Meyer Wolfsheim?

Meyer Wolfsheim was a business associate of mine, a gambler whose connection with me belonged to the less clear side of my fortune. There were suspicions of bootlegging around my wealth. I cannot give you a complete accounting of those dealings. What I can say is that the house and the crowded parties did not explain themselves, and my polished account of my past left much unanswered. I wanted people to notice what I possessed rather than ask closely how I had obtained it.

Why doesn't your new wealth give you Tom Buchanan's social standing?

I believed wealth would open the doors that poverty had kept shut. Tom's position showed me that possessing money and being accepted were not the same thing. He belonged to a world where wealth was already part of the family story; I had built a new identity over beginnings I wanted to escape. My mansion could display success, but it could not supply that history. I mistook the outward signs of belonging for belonging itself, and Tom could challenge what I had so carefully assembled.

How much of your dream is about Daisy, and how much is about belonging?

I cannot divide the dream neatly. Daisy was bound up with a whole life I wanted to enter, and that life seemed to promise an escape from James Gatz and his poor beginnings. I wanted wealth, acceptance, and the power to recover something I believed I had lost. Each wish strengthened the others until I treated them as a single purpose. Looking at the end, I can see that I asked one dream to settle every uncertainty about who I was and where I belonged.