第六章上：伟大的盖茨比与可怜的盖茨比

1. 盖茨比的出生：

原名：James Gatz（ He had changed it at the age of seventeen）

父母：His parents were shiftless and unsuccessful farm people

现用名：Jay Gatsby (He had 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)

2. 盖茨比的人生的转折点：

 It was James Gatz who had been loafing along the beach that afternoon in a torn green jersey and a pair of canvas pants, but it was already Jay Gatsby who borrowed a row-boat, pulled out to the TUOLOMEE and informed Cody that a wind might catch him and break him up in half an hour.

对于GATSBY来说，实际上他一直在等待着这样的一个机会，就算不是CODY，也会有其他人。这个叫做JAMEZ GATZ的人一直游荡在LONG ISLAND等待机会，希望成为自己心目中的那个JAY GATSBY.

3. 没有遇见CODY前的盖茨比的生活

A. 日常生活：

 For over a year he had been beating his way along the south shore of Lake Superior as a clam digger and a salmon fisher or in any other capacity that brought him food and bed.

His brown, hardening body lived naturally through the half fierce, half lazy work of the bracing days

B. 精神与情感生活：

He knew women early and since they spoiled him he became contemptuous of them, of young virgins because they were ignorant, of the others because they were hysterical about things which in his overwhelming self-absorption he took for granted.

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 wash-stand 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 securely on a fairy’s wing.

An instinct toward his future glory had led him, some months before, to the small Lutheran college of St. Olaf in southern Minnesota. He stayed there two weeks, dismayed at its ferocious indifference to the drums of his destiny,

 B.     When and why had James Gatz changed his name to Jay Gatsby?

      James Gatz想要改名字是表象。而根源就是想要改变自己的人生。因为一个人的名字就是一个人出生和社会地位的象征。尤其是一个人的姓，这个姓很大程度上决定了这个人的人生。尤其是当时的社会。贵族有贵族自身传承的姓。古老而高贵的姓氏即使经济财力上没落了，但是在他人眼中社会地位还是高人一等的。否则为什么会有旧贵族和新贵族之分呢。而新贵族又无法真正的融入上流社会中呢。因为即使有钱，钱也不一定代表地位。

3.    To young Gatz, what did Dan Cody’s yacht represent? 

yacht就是金钱财富的象征， 是上流社会的代表。是他向往的人生。

To the young Gatz, resting on his oars and looking up at the railed deck, the yacht represented all the beauty and glamour in the world。

4. 盖茨比从CODY处获得的东西：

A： 人生经验：

He was employed in a vague personal capacity—while he remained with Cody he was in turn steward, mate, skipper, secretary, and even jailor 做过各种活

The arrangement lasted five years during which the boat went three times around the continent  到处旅游，见识了市面

B： 处事风格与原则

基本不喝酒----因为CODY死于酗酒

It was indirectly due to CODY that Gatsby drank so little.

Sometimes in the course of gay parties women used to rub champagne into his hair; for himself he formed the habit of letting liquor alone. 我的理解是他收到了心理和自尊上的羞辱，导致对酒精也非常憎恨

C：金钱

实际意义上盖茨比并没有继承CODY的遗产。但是凭借这跟随CODY着几年来的经验和上流社会的形式做风，让他可以进行生意。最终获得财富。

And it was from Cody that he inherited money—a legacy of twenty-five thousand dollars. He didn’t get it. He never understood the legal device that was used against him but what remained of the millions went intact to Ella Kaye. He was left with his singularly appropriate education; the vague contour of Jay Gatsby had filled out to the substantiality of a man.

@TS