“The most grotesque and fantastic conceits haunted young Gatz in his bed at night. A universe of ineffable gaudiness spun itself out in his brain. To him that yacht represented all the beauty and glamour in the world.”
This is Fitzgerald’s description of his lead character Gatz’s attraction to his key mentor Dan Cody. In his meeting with this shipmaster, Gatz “invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen-year-old boy would be likely to invent…” What do we invent in our late teens, and do we ever escape from this invention? Gatsby doesn’t seem to be able to escape this creation and his infatuation with Daisy.
Maturity is difficult. It has to do with rejecting the opinions of those closest to you. Sometimes it is difficult to know what else there is.