If Chapter 5 showed Gatsby achieving his dream, Chapter 6 demonstrates just how deeply his dream runs. Much of the mystery surrounding Gatsby is cleared away in this chapter and the reader learns more about who he really is, where he comes from, and what he believes. After seeing Gatsby and getting to know him, Nick presents the real story of his past. By holding the actual story until Chapter 6, Fitzgerald accomplishes two things: First and most obviously, he builds suspense and piques the reader’s curiosity. Second, and of equal importance, Fitzgerald is able to undercut the image of Gatsby. Ever so subtly, Fitzgerald presents, in effect, an exposé. Much as Nick did, one feels led on — Gatsby is not at all the man he claims to be. Fitzgerald wants the readers to feel delighted, glad for someone to succeed by his own ingenuity, we also a little unnerved at the ease in which Gatsby has been able to pull off his charade.
The chapter opens with an increased flurry of suspicion surrounding Gatsby. Much to his delight, the rumors about him are flying as furiously as ever, even bringing a wayward reporter to investigate (although what, precisely, he was investigating he wouldn’t say). Rumors about Gatsby’s past abound by the end of the summer, making a perfect segue for Nick to tell the real story on his neighbor — James Gatz from North Dakota. Gatsby is, in reality, a creation, a fiction brought to life. He is the fabrication of a young Midwestern dreamer, the son of “shiftless and unsuccessful farm people” who spent his youth planning how he would escape the monotony of his everyday life — a life he never really accepted at all. He craved adventures and the embodiment of the romantic ideal, and so he voluntarily left his family to make his own way. In many senses, Gatsby’s story is the rags-to-riches American dream. A young man from the middle of nowhere, through his own ingenuity and resourcefulness, makes it big.
