The Beautiful and Damned: Chapter 2 Summary & Analysis

Anthony exists in a society with elaborately choreographed rituals, into which he is invited despite his continual feelings of loneliness. One of these rituals is marriage. As is any young bachelor, Anthony is in danger of being the target of women looking for husbands. Anthony’s disgust with Dick’s face and distraction from the substance of Dick’s conversation suggests that Anthony might be prone to the traps of the society girl who is beauty incarnate.

As a “famous” society girl, Gloria has presumably made a name for herself through no means but her beauty. Anthony’s attraction to the idea of monetizing beauty reflects not only his attraction to beautiful women but also his narcissism and hope that his own beauty might be enough for him to get by in the world without working.

In this moment Anthony proves unable to have a conversation about an interpersonal issue. Rather, he must deflect to philosophy, which is all he has been trained to discuss. His privileged upbringing has given him an array of intellectual tools but has left him emotionally stunted. He is unconcerned by Dick’s expression of discomfort in their friendship but continues to be preoccupied by the desire to be more beautiful than Dick.

The Gilberts are one of the only models of marriage Anthony has seen as an adult. Mr. Gilbert models controlling behavior on the part of a husband, while Mrs. Gilbert models a wife’s concession to being controlled. The absence of Gloria in this scene both emphasizes the unbalanced marriage and builds up more mystery and legend around the dream of Gloria.

The style of the passage emphasizes that this social interaction is an aesthetic performance and that the characters have been groomed to perform a certain way. This then raises the question of who the audience is.

Although Maury has been spoiled by a privileged upbringing and often drinks with Anthony, it seems that he is less constitutionally unable to accomplish anything than Anthony is. Rather, he is deliberately spending his days drinking as part of a concerted project.  Unlike Anthony, he is conscious of his need to do something to enact his plan to get rich.

Anthony depends on Maury, his intellectual sparring partner, and on women he considers his intellectual inferiors to feel safe in his own home. Maury might be seen as a foil for Anthony in several ways. His closeness with his mother and ability to spend weekends with her contrasts with Anthony’s orphaned loneliness. In fact, it is important to note that Anthony is in competition with Maury’s mother for Maury’s time.

The narrator has stated that Anthony feels more comfortable around Maury than Dick. This passage contrasts with the preceding interaction with Dick to demonstrate that Maury is more likely than Dick to talk in abstract philosophical terms that are comfortable to the highly-educated but poorly socialized Anthony.

Both Anthony and Maury notice Gloria’s youth and beauty above all. In fact, her youth and beauty are so distracting that Maury neglects to stick to the schedule that usually governs his life. Fitzgerald uses Maury in this scene to demonstrate that it is not only Anthony who is dangerously attracted to Gloria. Like the sirens of Homer’s Odyssey, Gloria’s main defining characteristic is her powerful allure to men.

Maury and Anthony value women’s beauty and despise women’s intelligence. Their remarks reflect their conditioning by a society that not only casts women as objects to be gazed upon, but that also tends to valorize beauty over intelligence. Unlike Anthony, Maury has reservations about yielding to his desire for Gloria’s beauty and indeed sees that she might be more substantive underneath its mask.

Anthony’s renewed interest in Dick is motivated by a newfound interest in Gloria, who he now desires both because of her beauty and because Maury covets her as well. His self-satisfaction with planning a social engagement demonstrates both his privileged access to leisure time and his poor time management skills. With each wasted day, he is wasting more of his life.

Anthony’s inability to stick to the social contract surrounding library due dates increases the reader’s sense that Anthony is unable to truly function in society. He worries that time and his friends are passing him by, and yet he passively allows himself to fall further behind schedule. Again because of his privileged upbringing, he does not worry about financial consequences of his lateness.

Anthony is beginning to rely on alcohol to keep his mood up. When drunk, he manages to convince himself that he is better than those around him and that he will rise to greatness. He takes for granted that he will inherit a fortune from his grandfather on which he will build himself into a legacy-worthy political figure.

Anthony relies on the presence of others to distract himself from his self-loathing. His mood lightens when he sees Gloria’s fashionable clothing. The sight seems to give him the energy to perform the role of host. The social grace of listening to his guest and making a fire is born not out of real hospitality but out of the desire to match Gloria’s fashionable appearance.

Gloria is self-absorbed to the point that she does not seem to notice that no one is listening to her. Anthony once again demonstrates that he is interested in Gloria for her beauty alone. He only begins listening to her when she compliments his own appearance. They are perfectly matched in their self-absorption, but already show, this early in their relationship, a fundamental inability to attend to one another.

In each other’s company, Anthony and Gloria fall immediately out of touch with the rest of the world. Gloria seems more comfortable than Maury with Anthony’s preferred method of bonding: insulting mutual acquaintances or celebrities. Gloria mirrors Anthony’s desire to be complimented by sitting up when she hears that her reputation, the image she carefully cultivates, has preceded her.

While the self-interested Gloria is flattered by the rumors circulating about her, Anthony is pleased to find that he seems to have won out over Maury in the competition for Gloria’s attention. Gloria wants to be gazed upon as an object of beauty and intrigue. Anthony wants this object of beauty to gaze back at him.

Gloria and Anthony seem equally invested in Gloria’s carefully composed appearance. Anthony’s wonder at Gloria’s youthfulness demonstrates both the infantilizing of women common to this society, and a nostalgic preoccupation with the lack of responsibility Anthony himself had as a child. 

Like Anthony, Gloria is invested in elevating herself at the expense of others, particularly when it comes to physical appearance. By quoting Dick, she reveals that she thinks of herself in terms that society has laid out for her as a woman. She has kissed or been kissed any number of times, but she has difficulty distinguishing a performed kiss from a “real” kiss because she is constantly performing the role of the society girl. The line she quotes from Dick also shows that motherhood is expected of her as woman—her life is only defined in relation to men and children, not on her own terms.

Gloria professes to defy societal expectations by rejecting the timeline society has set for her, but she also reinforces this timeline by worrying about her age. She does not want to reject the timeline entirely but rather wants to remain suspended at a particular, youthful moment when she has the most power and agency within society’s expectations. It is in this moment that Anthony first caters to her wishes by ordering her the candy that makes her appear so childlike.

Because neither Anthony nor Gloria has the discipline to keep after adult responsibilities, they feel comfortable confessing their laziness to one another. In fact, in each other’s company, they are proud of their lack of accomplishments. Gloria’s self-absorption prevents her from focusing for long on Anthony’s confession of laziness, and Anthony betrays the first hint of his temper and frustration with being ignored by her. Both characters demonstrate an uneasy understanding that they conflate beauty with youth.

Anthony remains fixated on Gloria despite her inattention to him. In fact, he seems all the more determined to pursue her because of her affected disinterest, even though he finds it incredibly frustrating. He seems to want her because he cannot fully have her, and she enjoys being the object of his desire.

Anthony and Gloria find themselves in the midst of a social performance. All the women are trying to sell images of themselves to the men of good social standing in the hopes of climbing the ranks of society. Anthony feels removed enough from this performance to reflect on it as though he is an objective observer, but the fact that Gloria seems the most at home of any of the women in this setting suggests that Anthony may be unwittingly falling prey to her performance.

Anthony has difficulty distinguishing between the false reality presented on stage and the reality of life. His anxiety over this blurred boundary reflects his conception of his life as a story that will unfold without his intervention. Gloria feels that a performance venue is exactly where she is most at home, suggesting that she too feels that her life is disconnected from reality. Anthony’s intense desire to render an artistic representation of Gloria suggests an impulse to break with reality even further, becoming fully absorbed in her appearance instead of with his “real” life, or even his interactions with Gloria herself as a person beyond her beauty.