Francis Scott Fitzgerald 
The Beautiful and Damned 

The Beautiful and Damned is the story of a couple and their gradual moral decay. Anthony, a handsome and bored young man, orphaned of both mother and father, who after a degree from Harvard spends a few years in Rome where, among women, evenings with friends and artistic inspirations of various kinds, like many young people he feels that one day he will do great things in life and win a place in the firmament of men of worth. On the other hand is Gloria, a 22-year-old from Kansas City, eccentric, restless, disenchanted, who immediately captivates Anthony with her beauty and fierce character. The two begin dating, fall in love, and marry, convinced that they have the world on a string. Now that adult life can finally begin, it happens, however, that the two, anchored in their privileges of wealth and beauty, find themselves unable to commit to any plan. The Beautiful and Damned is a social satire and a critique of American politics and morality in the early 20th century, the years of Prohibition, where young people have to come to terms with the crisis of pre-war values and self-realization through work. They embody the illusion of their era, an era that will end tragically with the crisis of ’29.

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