“The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald (post 6): When the title character is referred to in quotation marks, it implies that he is only an alternate personality.

In the rest of the novel, there is one point at which the title character is referred to in quotation marks:

“It was this night [after Daisy had driven a car that hit and killed her husband Tom’s mistress] that he [Gatsby] told me the strange story of his youth with Dan Cody [when Gatz changed his name to Gatsby]—told it to me because ‘Jay Gatsby’ had broken up like glass against Tom’s hard malice, and the long secret extravaganza was played out. I think that he would have acknowledged anything now, without reserve, but he wanted to talk about Daisy [the woman Gatsby loves]” (1, p. 148).

With those quotation marks, does the author acknowledge that “Jay Gatsby” is only an alternate personality whose time in control had come to an end and was played out? Inadvertently.

1. F. Scott Fitzgerald. The Great Gatsby [1925]. New York, Scribner, 2004.