The Beautiful and Damned

The Beautiful and Damned follows Anthony Patch, a young socialite who has everything he could ever want except love. His marriage to Gloria Gilbert seems to be his ticket to happiness, but it only leads him down an even darker path of deception and despair.

They are both from wealthy New York City families in the early 1900s. Anthony is shallow and self-involved. He thinks of others as underneath him. Gloria is extremely attractive but has no sense of right or wrong. When they marry, each of them expects love to be enough to make them happy, but their expectations are thwarted by reality.

Anthony wants to enjoy his youth while Gloria wants to settle down and get married. They are both shallow and self-involved, which damages their relationship. Their relationship is doomed from the start because they have different goals in life. In this novel Fitzgerald explores the moral questions of a decadent life and examines the consequences of wealth on character.