What's the Point, Fitz?

Call me what you will, but a Fitzgerald hater I am not. In fact, I love F. Scott Fitzgerald. I would defend his works to the grave, either with actual intellectual argument or, if necessary, with petty name-calling and stubborn refusals to concede any adversarial points.
I say all of this only to contextualize how hard it is for me to admit that I have no idea what Fitzgerald was going for with The Beautiful and Damned. The Great Gatsby, for example, spoke volumes about the apparent hollowness of aristocratic society and the absolute perversion of the American Dream. The entirety of Fitzgerald’s prose in the case of Gatsby builds upon these two ideas. When the reader had made his or her way through the story, they can feel as if they’ve learned something, even if that something is nothing more than Fitzgerald’s views on the world and culture he so immersed himself in. With The Beautiful and Damned, however, it’s a different story.
The problem seems to stem, at least from my point of view, from the fact that the different characters within the story seem to be giving different (and in some ways contradictory) messages. Every time there seems to be a chance for Fitzgerald to make a real statement, different characters seem to make arguments for both sides. This will be a whole lot easier to explain using actual examples from the book, so here are a few (but definitely not all) of them:

Cynicism Towards Life: Anthony and Maury are two characters that could very well have allowed Fitzgerald to comment on this idea of cynicism (or alternatively passion) towards life. These two are introduced as cynical, especially in relation to Dick, who is relatively passionate and sentimental. However, Anthony and Maury go in two separate directions. Anthony has his tragic fall and Maury becomes wealthy and happy. Both are cynical, so Fitzgerald can’t be making a comment on this issue (or, if he is, it isn’t a very strong or generalized one).

Shallowness of the Aristocracy: If The Beautiful and Damned only concerned Anthony and Gloria, this may have been a very powerful theme. Unfortunately, there are just too many other characters who also have wealth that fare much better than Mr. and Mrs. Patch. Maury, for one, and also Dick, Bloeckman, etc. Not only do these characters find prosperity, but they seem to be very levelheaded and mature. Surely Fitzgerald couldn’t be commenting on this common theme of his, or else this shallowness would have been extended to all those with wealth.

Importance of Work: Anthony and Gloria both seem to consider being lazy an admirable virtue, which is obviously a backwards ideal (or so we are led to believe in contemporary society), so could this be what Fitzgerald is aiming at? Again, if he is, his other characters seem to undermine this assertion. Maury’s vocational endeavors are glossed over, condensed to only one or two sentences, and Muriel never seems to get a job herself, and yet they both turn out fine.

Futility of Material Wealth and Beauty: This was, during my reading, something I looked for a lot, as it seems a fine fit for a story like this. All of the parties, preening, and arrogance of Anthony and Gloria becomes moot later in life as their money begins to disappear. In fact, the pursuit of money seems to be a major cause of tension in the Patch household, especially after they find out that Adam Patch has removed them from his will. Strangely, this pursuit of wealth is validated in the final pages of the book when the inheritance is given to Anthony and Gloria. All of their laziness and partying is given a completely undeserved pat on the head (so to speak) in this moment. It’s a strange choice by Fitzgerald, to say the least.

Obviously, I’m generalizing in some of the above examples, but what the list does provide is proof that Fitzgerald seems to wander from (potential) argument to argument without really providing solid support for either side. The last argument is, admittedly, the most likely candidate for Fitzgerald’s main theme. Even though they do receive the inheritance, the fruitless pursuit of money and beauty has made them “unclean” in the eyes of others. The journey has left them hallow shells of their former selves, though again, there are other characters who counter this argument. Bloeckman, again, and Dick come to mind (both pursue success and fortune and attain it without “losing their souls,” so to speak).
If one were to combine some of these potential themes, some truth might make its way to forefront. Perhaps, then, the real message of the story is that “Without honest work, the pursuit of material wealth is a nearly impossible endeavor.” This seems to be something that Fitzgerald’s work here could support. But even this is not without counterexamples in the story.
I don’t mean to pick on Fitzgerald or The Beautiful and Damned. I liked the book and (as I explained at the beginning) I love the Fitz. It’s just that this story seems rather sloppy compared to some of his other works. I’m sure others will disagree with me on this last point. Perhaps I just misinterpreted some pivotal scene and the story’s theme is much more apparent than I make it appear. All I know is that, as a Fitzgerald fan, I was ultimately disappointed by the weak moral argument that The Beautiful and Damned presents to its reader.

Does F. Scott Fitzgerald Even Believe in Romantic Love?

It’s quite easy, probably too easy, to think of F. Scott Fitzgerald as a writer who really believes in love. He probably does it in a more cynical way than many writers of his time (and admittedly many idealist contemporary writers), but to the uninitiated reading, his stories are focused on this pursuit of “love”. For those who really pay attention to Fitzgerald’s writing, however, it becomes clear that his general outlook on romantic relationships is very much an unromantic affair. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that Fitzgerald doesn’t believe in true, romantic love at all (at least in the way that we think about it today; a strong physical and emotional bond between two people).
The Beautiful and Damned provides some great support for this theory. One of the best is witnessed in the transition from Part I to Part II. At the end of Part I, we have what can be loosely seen as the climax to a modern romantic comedy. Anthony, after having made some mistake (and things were oh so well too), builds up his courage and makes a plan to win Gloria back. He, of course, does, and she is so in love with him (or so we are meant to believe) that she will break her previous arrangement to be with Anthony. I’ll leave the trials and tribulations that had preceded this moment behind for now (as my argument lies in the long stretch after the supposedly “fall in love,” not during the courting process), instead focusing on comes immediately afterward. In a romantic comedy, which I believe is a fine example (if a somewhat naïve one) of a romantic ideal view, the movie ends here and the audience is left to believe that all is now well in the world of these two young lovers. They will live happily and fulfilled for all of their days. Fitzgerald, however, doesn’t even give them until the wedding before they start pestering each other.
Only two pages later, however, Fitzgerald remarks that in “between kisses Anthony and his golden girl quarreled incessantly” (p. 108). Obviously, Fitzgerald doesn’t realize (or doesn’t care, more likely) that everything’s supposed to be puppy dogs and roses for these two. They’ve had their climactic moment, everything should be happy now. And why not? Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey would have been by now. Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, for all their struggles, are at this point in their story living their perfect lives together. Anthony and Gloria, however, are postponing their inevitable downfall from the very beginning by dismissing their quarrels with kisses. I don’t mean to suggest that Fitzgerald must take the cliché road and have the last two-thirds of the book be idealist tripe, but the fact that these problems are introduced so soon after the supposed “climax” of their pre-marriage life seems significant.
I won’t address the lives of Anthony and Gloria after their marriage goes on for too long, because it’s almost a given that their passion would fade as time continues (and I don’t at all mean this as a negative, just a fact of life). What is interesting, however, is that while Anthony struggled almost nonstop with getting Gloria back after she asked him to leave her home (calling it an “obsession” at one point), Gloria’s diary reveals those feelings were not exactly mutual. She seems to be very methodical about the whole thing, listing the types of husbands there are and which one Anthony would be. Granted, she does say she would like to marry Anthony, but her “obsession” is more with the idea of marriage than to her passion for Anthony as a person. Also, we get almost no indication of the same sort of inner struggle during their time apart from Gloria. There is nothing in her diary during the six week Gloria boycott Anthony attempts. Perhaps Fitzgerald uses this moment to remind his readers that there are two sides to this story, and they are not both as passionate as the other.
Finally (there are countless more examples but this blog is getting long enough as it is), I bring forth to the evidence table Anthony’s “semi-fictional” friend, Chevalier O’Keefe. This is a man who epitomizes the ideal, romantic love, being “enormously susceptible to all sorts and conditions of women” (p. 75). He was “a romantic, a vain fellow, [and] a man of wild passions…” (p. 75). This man, this Chevalier O’Keefe, so romantic in his thoughts vows off women and their power over him, deciding instead to become a celibate monk. Just before he takes his vows, however, a woman readjusting her dress distracts him and he tumbles to his dishonorable death. I feel that this is a very succinct summary of Fitzgerald’s feelings toward love (and women in general). They are an inescapable fact of life, and they will be the downfall of the men who love them.
Obviously, anyone with a view like this towards love (not, I would say, an altogether outrageous or unsympathetic stance) cannot truly believe in romantic love. In fact, he seems to cry out against it. Stay away, he seems to say. It is, however, inevitable (as both the Chevalier O’Keefe and Anthony, both sworn away from women and/or marriage end of falling, one figuratively and one literally, for a woman).
I do not, of course, claim this as an inarguable point. I will defend it until I convinced otherwise, but I do look forward to some responses from others who may or may not feel the same way about Fitzgerald’s views on love. In any case, the examples provided above do present a strong case for Fitzgerald’s unconvinced opinion of the idealist romantic love.