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The Rich Boy
Fitzgerald's short story "The Rich Boy" (like his novel The Great Gatsby) utilizes an outside narrator to tell the story of a wealthy protagonist in a sympathetic but still somewhat distanced way. Here the protagonist is Anson Hunter, a well-to-do young New Yorker, who would seem to have the whole world ahead of him and the streets paved in gold.
By his early twenties, he has found his ideal woman as the exquisite -- and very rich -- Paula Legendre. On the surface, Paula would not seem to be the type of girl that would exert such a pull on Anson. Anson seems to have a lot of oats to sow, and Fitzgerald describes Paula as being "conservative and rather proper." But he is, nonetheless, obsessed by her, not because she represents the money he wants -- after all, he already has enough of his own -- but because she represents the social system that justifies his existence. In his world, responsible older men (like his uncle Robert) hold the reins of government and business; chaste and proper women (like Paula and her mother) maintain the rules of propriety and etiquette; and, until they get old enough to assume the mantle of responsible older manhood, playboys like Anson play. That is all Anson thinks he is doing right now. Just as he sees in himself the undeveloped kernel of a future leader, he sees in Paula the kernel of a future society matron. He thinks they would make a good pair.
What he doesn't realize, however, is that his virtually unlimited wealth has within it the power to corrupt him, and it's already doing a good job. His first problem is that he sees himself as superior. He carries himself that way; Fitzgerald says that ". . . He had a confident charm and a certain brusque style, and the upper-class men who passed him on the street knew without being told that he was a rich boy and had gone to one of the best schools. . . . Anson accepted without reservation the world of high finance and high extravagance, of divorce and dissipation, of snobbery and of privilege."
Anson doesn't see any reason why, being young and rich, he has to play by anyone else's rules. If he wants to drink himself under the table, why shouldn't he have the right to do that? And regardless of where or with whom he happens to be when he acts drunkenly, or obscenely, or boorishly, why should he apologize for his behavior? He's rich, and the rich make the rules, don't they? People should just accept his natural superiority, regardless of how he behaves.
It would seem very difficult to sympathize with a character who holds these beliefs and acts upon them so wholeheartedly; but we do, because we sense that he is headed for a fall. His first mistake lies in his inability to commit himself to Paula. Fate gave Anson every opportunity to take Paula as his own. In doing so, he would be asserting his adulthood; he would be taking his place alongside the other well-to-do movers and shakers of New York. But, true to his status as a tragic hero, he constantly tries to defy fate. The role ordained for him is to be a wealthy, responsible scion of business, a lord of some suburban manor, the benefactor of deserving charities; for far too long, he refuses. Anson doesn't want to grow up. He gets a job, "entering a brokerage house, joining half a dozen clubs, [and] dancing late." Even as he moves up the corporate ladder, there is still that part of him that is unable to give up the schoolboy carousing, the indifference toward the responsibilities that fate has laid upon his shoulders as the wages of being rich.
His second mistake is in self-righteously condemning his aunt Edna for having an affair. Anson, of all people, ought to be the last person to condemn anyone for moral lapses, and certainly not lapses of the heart; Anson's heart is far more lapsed than Edna and Cary's. He himself had just broken up with Dolly Karger, whom he dated all the while knowing she meant nothing to him, and her careless behavior merely mirrored his own. He has no right to threaten to expose Edna and Cary, and he is thus directly responsible for Cary's suicide. But "Anson never blamed himself for his part in the affair [because he believed] the situation which brought it about had not been of his making." But there, of course, he is wrong.
His third mistake lies in the belief that when he is ready, Paula will be waiting. He is disturbed when he hears she has married someone else, but, as we have pointed out, Anson lives in a world characterized by "divorce and dissipation", and he seems to feel Paula will come around on his timetable. What this basically amounts to is a belief that fate is on his side; it must be, because he was born rich. But the overriding lesson of Anson's life is that of those to whom much is given, much is asked. Anson does not seem to realize that payback is a lifelong process.
By his early twenties, he has found his ideal woman as the exquisite -- and very rich -- Paula Legendre. On the surface, Paula would not seem to be the type of girl that would exert such a pull on Anson. Anson seems to have a lot of oats to sow, and Fitzgerald describes Paula as being "conservative and rather proper." But he is, nonetheless, obsessed by her, not because she represents the money he wants -- after all, he already has enough of his own -- but because she represents the social system that justifies his existence. In his world, responsible older men (like his uncle Robert) hold the reins of government and business; chaste and proper women (like Paula and her mother) maintain the rules of propriety and etiquette; and, until they get old enough to assume the mantle of responsible older manhood, playboys like Anson play. That is all Anson thinks he is doing right now. Just as he sees in himself the undeveloped kernel of a future leader, he sees in Paula the kernel of a future society matron. He thinks they would make a good pair.
What he doesn't realize, however, is that his virtually unlimited wealth has within it the power to corrupt him, and it's already doing a good job. His first problem is that he sees himself as superior. He carries himself that way; Fitzgerald says that ". . . He had a confident charm and a certain brusque style, and the upper-class men who passed him on the street knew without being told that he was a rich boy and had gone to one of the best schools. . . . Anson accepted without reservation the world of high finance and high extravagance, of divorce and dissipation, of snobbery and of privilege."
Anson doesn't see any reason why, being young and rich, he has to play by anyone else's rules. If he wants to drink himself under the table, why shouldn't he have the right to do that? And regardless of where or with whom he happens to be when he acts drunkenly, or obscenely, or boorishly, why should he apologize for his behavior? He's rich, and the rich make the rules, don't they? People should just accept his natural superiority, regardless of how he behaves.
It would seem very difficult to sympathize with a character who holds these beliefs and acts upon them so wholeheartedly; but we do, because we sense that he is headed for a fall. His first mistake lies in his inability to commit himself to Paula. Fate gave Anson every opportunity to take Paula as his own. In doing so, he would be asserting his adulthood; he would be taking his place alongside the other well-to-do movers and shakers of New York. But, true to his status as a tragic hero, he constantly tries to defy fate. The role ordained for him is to be a wealthy, responsible scion of business, a lord of some suburban manor, the benefactor of deserving charities; for far too long, he refuses. Anson doesn't want to grow up. He gets a job, "entering a brokerage house, joining half a dozen clubs, [and] dancing late." Even as he moves up the corporate ladder, there is still that part of him that is unable to give up the schoolboy carousing, the indifference toward the responsibilities that fate has laid upon his shoulders as the wages of being rich.
His second mistake is in self-righteously condemning his aunt Edna for having an affair. Anson, of all people, ought to be the last person to condemn anyone for moral lapses, and certainly not lapses of the heart; Anson's heart is far more lapsed than Edna and Cary's. He himself had just broken up with Dolly Karger, whom he dated all the while knowing she meant nothing to him, and her careless behavior merely mirrored his own. He has no right to threaten to expose Edna and Cary, and he is thus directly responsible for Cary's suicide. But "Anson never blamed himself for his part in the affair [because he believed] the situation which brought it about had not been of his making." But there, of course, he is wrong.
His third mistake lies in the belief that when he is ready, Paula will be waiting. He is disturbed when he hears she has married someone else, but, as we have pointed out, Anson lives in a world characterized by "divorce and dissipation", and he seems to feel Paula will come around on his timetable. What this basically amounts to is a belief that fate is on his side; it must be, because he was born rich. But the overriding lesson of Anson's life is that of those to whom much is given, much is asked. Anson does not seem to realize that payback is a lifelong process.
160 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1926
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1499 people want to read
About the author
F. Scott Fitzgerald
2,321 books25.5k followersFrancis Scott Key Fitzgerald, widely known simply as Scott Fitzgerald, was an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. He is best known for his novels depicting the flamboyance and excess of the Jazz Age, a term he popularized in his short story collection Tales of the Jazz Age. During his lifetime, he published four novels, four story collections, and 164 short stories. Although he achieved temporary popular success and fortune in the 1920s, Fitzgerald received critical acclaim only after his death and is now widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century.
Born into a middle-class family in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Fitzgerald was raised primarily in New York state. He attended Princeton University where he befriended future literary critic Edmund Wilson. Owing to a failed romantic relationship with Chicago socialite Ginevra King, he dropped out in 1917 to join the United States Army during World War I. While stationed in Alabama, he met Zelda Sayre, a Southern debutante who belonged to Montgomery's exclusive country-club set. Although she initially rejected Fitzgerald's marriage proposal due to his lack of financial prospects, Zelda agreed to marry him after he published the commercially successful This Side of Paradise (1920). The novel became a cultural sensation and cemented his reputation as one of the eminent writers of the decade.
His second novel, The Beautiful and Damned (1922), propelled him further into the cultural elite. To maintain his affluent lifestyle, he wrote numerous stories for popular magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post, Collier's Weekly, and Esquire. During this period, Fitzgerald frequented Europe, where he befriended modernist writers and artists of the "Lost Generation" expatriate community, including Ernest Hemingway. His third novel, The Great Gatsby (1925), received generally favorable reviews but was a commercial failure, selling fewer than 23,000 copies in its first year. Despite its lackluster debut, The Great Gatsby is now hailed by some literary critics as the "Great American Novel". Following the deterioration of his wife's mental health and her placement in a mental institute for schizophrenia, Fitzgerald completed his final novel, Tender Is the Night (1934).
Struggling financially because of the declining popularity of his works during the Great Depression, Fitzgerald moved to Hollywood, where he embarked upon an unsuccessful career as a screenwriter. While living in Hollywood, he cohabited with columnist Sheilah Graham, his final companion before his death. After a long struggle with alcoholism, he attained sobriety only to die of a heart attack in 1940, at 44. His friend Edmund Wilson edited and published an unfinished fifth novel, The Last Tycoon (1941), after Fitzgerald's death. In 1993, a new edition was published as The Love of the Last Tycoon, edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli.
Born into a middle-class family in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Fitzgerald was raised primarily in New York state. He attended Princeton University where he befriended future literary critic Edmund Wilson. Owing to a failed romantic relationship with Chicago socialite Ginevra King, he dropped out in 1917 to join the United States Army during World War I. While stationed in Alabama, he met Zelda Sayre, a Southern debutante who belonged to Montgomery's exclusive country-club set. Although she initially rejected Fitzgerald's marriage proposal due to his lack of financial prospects, Zelda agreed to marry him after he published the commercially successful This Side of Paradise (1920). The novel became a cultural sensation and cemented his reputation as one of the eminent writers of the decade.
His second novel, The Beautiful and Damned (1922), propelled him further into the cultural elite. To maintain his affluent lifestyle, he wrote numerous stories for popular magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post, Collier's Weekly, and Esquire. During this period, Fitzgerald frequented Europe, where he befriended modernist writers and artists of the "Lost Generation" expatriate community, including Ernest Hemingway. His third novel, The Great Gatsby (1925), received generally favorable reviews but was a commercial failure, selling fewer than 23,000 copies in its first year. Despite its lackluster debut, The Great Gatsby is now hailed by some literary critics as the "Great American Novel". Following the deterioration of his wife's mental health and her placement in a mental institute for schizophrenia, Fitzgerald completed his final novel, Tender Is the Night (1934).
Struggling financially because of the declining popularity of his works during the Great Depression, Fitzgerald moved to Hollywood, where he embarked upon an unsuccessful career as a screenwriter. While living in Hollywood, he cohabited with columnist Sheilah Graham, his final companion before his death. After a long struggle with alcoholism, he attained sobriety only to die of a heart attack in 1940, at 44. His friend Edmund Wilson edited and published an unfinished fifth novel, The Last Tycoon (1941), after Fitzgerald's death. In 1993, a new edition was published as The Love of the Last Tycoon, edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli.
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October 29, 2025
3,5*
Se eu escrevesse sobre os irmãos dele, teria de começar por atacar todas as mentiras que os pobres contaram sobre os ricos e as que os ricos contaram acerca deles próprios. Eles erigiram um bastião de tal modo complexo que, quando pegamos num livro sobre os ricos, o nosso instinto alerta-nos de imediato para a irrealidade com que iremos deparar.
Não sei se é verdade que o dinheiro não traz felicidade, mas esse chavão aplica-se realmente a este deprimente conto de F. Scott Fitzgerald. Ainda assim, não foi a história do pobre menino rico que parece perdido ou que acha que tudo lhe é dado de bandeja que mais me angustiou, mas sim a passagem do tempo sobre este frívolo protagonista. Sempre que havia a indicação de um salto temporal, ficava com a ideia de que se tinham passado décadas e que Anson Hunter era já um velho acabado, quando na verdade ainda não chegara aos 30 anos. Mérito deste grande escritor, sem dúvida.
Julgo que ele era incapaz de ser feliz a menos que alguém estivesse apaixonado por ele e se mostrasse atraído por ele como a limalha de ferro por um íman, sem reservas, prometendo-lhe tudo.
Se eu escrevesse sobre os irmãos dele, teria de começar por atacar todas as mentiras que os pobres contaram sobre os ricos e as que os ricos contaram acerca deles próprios. Eles erigiram um bastião de tal modo complexo que, quando pegamos num livro sobre os ricos, o nosso instinto alerta-nos de imediato para a irrealidade com que iremos deparar.
Não sei se é verdade que o dinheiro não traz felicidade, mas esse chavão aplica-se realmente a este deprimente conto de F. Scott Fitzgerald. Ainda assim, não foi a história do pobre menino rico que parece perdido ou que acha que tudo lhe é dado de bandeja que mais me angustiou, mas sim a passagem do tempo sobre este frívolo protagonista. Sempre que havia a indicação de um salto temporal, ficava com a ideia de que se tinham passado décadas e que Anson Hunter era já um velho acabado, quando na verdade ainda não chegara aos 30 anos. Mérito deste grande escritor, sem dúvida.
Julgo que ele era incapaz de ser feliz a menos que alguém estivesse apaixonado por ele e se mostrasse atraído por ele como a limalha de ferro por um íman, sem reservas, prometendo-lhe tudo.
November 11, 2011
Out of his collections of short stories, “The Rich Boy” is one of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s best pieces. Today the tale might be called a short novella; it has also been deemed a psychological study of the advantaged. It is the story of a young man born into wealth and how he responds to love, relationships and issues of money and status within his upper-class, 5th Avenue inner-circle.
Fitzgerald begins by depicting rich people almost as if they are a separate race – “they are different,” the narrator explains:
“They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are… Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are better than we are.”
Fitzgerald made the art of characterization seem easy. He molds his characters quickly as if with a painter’s brush, so that I feel I know them perfectly. Their gestures, body-language and thought processes flow smoothly from the palette, yet his people are not boring stereotypes. Indeed, Fitzgerald himself had this to say about characterization:
“Begin with an individual, and before you know it you find that you have created a type; begin with a type, and you find that you have created – nothing. That is because we are all queer fish, queerer behind our faces and voices than we want anyone to know or than we know ourselves.”
The main character in “The Rich Boy,” Anson Hunter, grows up having an English governess so that he and his siblings learn a certain way of speaking that resembles an English accent and is preeminent to middle and even upper-class American children. Thus, the people around him know he is superior – they know he is rich by just looking at him.
The tension of the story begins right away – with Anson's fitful love for Paula, and an iffy engagement, tinged with the kind of alcoholism that deviously thwarts everything in sight. Anson is a man who lives in separate worlds during the glittering, glamorous, roaring 20’s - before the crash, when everything seems impossibly affordable – big houses, flashy cars, Ritzy nights on the town. Fitzgerald’s settings are bewitching. Today some of the vernacular might sound old fashioned, yet, the efficient punch of its delivery stands as a first-rate testament to the writer’s craft!
Everything about Anson creates tension. Even his wealth and his absolute capability cause apprehension. Then, the awful hold that alcohol has on him and the maddening indecision it creates between Anson and a real commitment to Paula - or any woman. Finally, the way Anson goes about counseling all of the young couples in his “circle” yet cannot maintain a lasting relationship of his own. This compulsive will to verify himself as a moral, respectable, mature man of New York society by patching up difficulties in other marriages proves to be an irreparable flaw in Anson’s character. This conflict builds up to a sad denouement when Anson begins dutifully setting about putting an end to the illicit affair of his uncle’s wife, Edna. And when his machinations turn out badly, Anson takes no responsibility for the tragedy.
I want to like Anson even as I realize that underneath all of his glamour and devotion to high society and tradition of family posterity, he is really suffering inside with alcoholism. This handicap, or tragic flaw, gains my sympathy. However, Anson’s ultimate indecision in regards to commitment and real love, his hyper-vigilant need to interfere in the affairs of others, begins to strike me as infuriating - and of course, this very lapse in character adds to the tension of the story.
Fitzgerald’s propensity for describing a bar-scene at the Yale Club or the Plaza Hotel became thematic to his tales and, upon further reading, takes on a recurring vignette from one tale to the next. Yet, I find myself lapping up these settings that involve stylish bars and hotels; because, they are so well articulated, from the clever dialogue at the bar with a bartender or drinking-companion, to the colorful yet moody renderings, to the inevitable infatuation with glamorous women and the way these motifs affect Fitzgerald’s heroes.
I think of A Moveable Feast by Hemmingway all throughout Fitzgerald’s short story; because, in Hemmingway’s novel he describes Fitzgerald’s terrible weakness for alcohol. I also think of The Razor’s Edge by Somerset Maugham, perhaps because of its detached yet familial narrative style.
Fitzgerald, in a style all his own, offers shocks of unexpected sensitivity and wisdom, which seem somehow surprising. As when the narrator is relating Anson’s inner-response to a well-contrived letter from someone who loves him.
“Like most compromises, (the letter) had neither force nor vitality but only a timorous despair.”
What I find interesting about this story, and others by Fitzgerald, is the writer’s way of inserting the narrator as an acting character at various points. The story of Anson Hunter is told from a first-person, omniscient point of view; yet, I am always cognizant of the voice of F. Scott Fitzgerald telling his own story about the loves and losses that he experienced in his own dramatic life. As when Anson falls in love, there is the distinct feeling that Fitzgerald is giving an intimate account of his own foibles in love and the passions and alcoholic histrionics that occurred in his infamous marriage to his wife, Zelda.
I almost worship the writer’s vocabulary and his way of forming a phrase, such as – “rapt holy intensity” when describing the lovers. Or Anson and Paula’s “emasculated humor:” I found this such an apt way of describing the initial repartee that occurs between two people who are falling in love inside their own profound, yet rather childish, bubble.
“Nevertheless, they fell in love – and on her terms. He no longer joined the twilight gathering at the De Soto bar, and whenever they were seen together they were engaged in a long, serious dialogue, which must have gone on several weeks. Long afterward he told me that it was not about anything in particular but was composed on both sides of immature and even meaningless statements…”
Fitzgerald was contracted to write screenplays for Hollywood at two separate stages of his career, though he contemptuously viewed it as “whoring.” The author inserts himself briefly, however lightly-concealed, into Anson’s life:
“…one (friend) was in Hollywood writing continuities for pictures that Anson went faithfully to see.”
Thus the interweaving of fiction and autobiography! The glamor and infamous history of the writer himself affects the impact of his tales; yet, whether a reader knows about the writer’s life or not, Fitzgerald’s works are treasures!
Fitzgerald begins by depicting rich people almost as if they are a separate race – “they are different,” the narrator explains:
“They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are… Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are better than we are.”
Fitzgerald made the art of characterization seem easy. He molds his characters quickly as if with a painter’s brush, so that I feel I know them perfectly. Their gestures, body-language and thought processes flow smoothly from the palette, yet his people are not boring stereotypes. Indeed, Fitzgerald himself had this to say about characterization:
“Begin with an individual, and before you know it you find that you have created a type; begin with a type, and you find that you have created – nothing. That is because we are all queer fish, queerer behind our faces and voices than we want anyone to know or than we know ourselves.”
The main character in “The Rich Boy,” Anson Hunter, grows up having an English governess so that he and his siblings learn a certain way of speaking that resembles an English accent and is preeminent to middle and even upper-class American children. Thus, the people around him know he is superior – they know he is rich by just looking at him.
The tension of the story begins right away – with Anson's fitful love for Paula, and an iffy engagement, tinged with the kind of alcoholism that deviously thwarts everything in sight. Anson is a man who lives in separate worlds during the glittering, glamorous, roaring 20’s - before the crash, when everything seems impossibly affordable – big houses, flashy cars, Ritzy nights on the town. Fitzgerald’s settings are bewitching. Today some of the vernacular might sound old fashioned, yet, the efficient punch of its delivery stands as a first-rate testament to the writer’s craft!
Everything about Anson creates tension. Even his wealth and his absolute capability cause apprehension. Then, the awful hold that alcohol has on him and the maddening indecision it creates between Anson and a real commitment to Paula - or any woman. Finally, the way Anson goes about counseling all of the young couples in his “circle” yet cannot maintain a lasting relationship of his own. This compulsive will to verify himself as a moral, respectable, mature man of New York society by patching up difficulties in other marriages proves to be an irreparable flaw in Anson’s character. This conflict builds up to a sad denouement when Anson begins dutifully setting about putting an end to the illicit affair of his uncle’s wife, Edna. And when his machinations turn out badly, Anson takes no responsibility for the tragedy.
I want to like Anson even as I realize that underneath all of his glamour and devotion to high society and tradition of family posterity, he is really suffering inside with alcoholism. This handicap, or tragic flaw, gains my sympathy. However, Anson’s ultimate indecision in regards to commitment and real love, his hyper-vigilant need to interfere in the affairs of others, begins to strike me as infuriating - and of course, this very lapse in character adds to the tension of the story.
Fitzgerald’s propensity for describing a bar-scene at the Yale Club or the Plaza Hotel became thematic to his tales and, upon further reading, takes on a recurring vignette from one tale to the next. Yet, I find myself lapping up these settings that involve stylish bars and hotels; because, they are so well articulated, from the clever dialogue at the bar with a bartender or drinking-companion, to the colorful yet moody renderings, to the inevitable infatuation with glamorous women and the way these motifs affect Fitzgerald’s heroes.
I think of A Moveable Feast by Hemmingway all throughout Fitzgerald’s short story; because, in Hemmingway’s novel he describes Fitzgerald’s terrible weakness for alcohol. I also think of The Razor’s Edge by Somerset Maugham, perhaps because of its detached yet familial narrative style.
Fitzgerald, in a style all his own, offers shocks of unexpected sensitivity and wisdom, which seem somehow surprising. As when the narrator is relating Anson’s inner-response to a well-contrived letter from someone who loves him.
“Like most compromises, (the letter) had neither force nor vitality but only a timorous despair.”
What I find interesting about this story, and others by Fitzgerald, is the writer’s way of inserting the narrator as an acting character at various points. The story of Anson Hunter is told from a first-person, omniscient point of view; yet, I am always cognizant of the voice of F. Scott Fitzgerald telling his own story about the loves and losses that he experienced in his own dramatic life. As when Anson falls in love, there is the distinct feeling that Fitzgerald is giving an intimate account of his own foibles in love and the passions and alcoholic histrionics that occurred in his infamous marriage to his wife, Zelda.
I almost worship the writer’s vocabulary and his way of forming a phrase, such as – “rapt holy intensity” when describing the lovers. Or Anson and Paula’s “emasculated humor:” I found this such an apt way of describing the initial repartee that occurs between two people who are falling in love inside their own profound, yet rather childish, bubble.
“Nevertheless, they fell in love – and on her terms. He no longer joined the twilight gathering at the De Soto bar, and whenever they were seen together they were engaged in a long, serious dialogue, which must have gone on several weeks. Long afterward he told me that it was not about anything in particular but was composed on both sides of immature and even meaningless statements…”
Fitzgerald was contracted to write screenplays for Hollywood at two separate stages of his career, though he contemptuously viewed it as “whoring.” The author inserts himself briefly, however lightly-concealed, into Anson’s life:
“…one (friend) was in Hollywood writing continuities for pictures that Anson went faithfully to see.”
Thus the interweaving of fiction and autobiography! The glamor and infamous history of the writer himself affects the impact of his tales; yet, whether a reader knows about the writer’s life or not, Fitzgerald’s works are treasures!
April 29, 2014
Where Gatsby explores the concept of wealth and class from the point of view of the outsider---for no matter how much wealth Gatsby amasses, no matter how lavish his parties, no matter how desired his company, he will never be truly accepted because, as Fitzgerald hammers home in this novella just like he did in Gatsby---the rich are different than we are. Even if they lose their wealth, they are still different. The distinction goes deeper than bank account balances. It is a more existential thing, more caste than cash.
The Rich Boy is the anti-Gatsby. He is the insider. The dissolute rich boy incapable of feeling anything beyond his drive for idealized states of being---for him it is the idea of love, not love itself, or any emotion really, that drives him. Where Gatsby shows us how the wealthy damage and toy with the “common” people---The Rich Boy shows us how they damage themselves, even if they lack the ability to truly feel it.
The Rich Boy is the anti-Gatsby. He is the insider. The dissolute rich boy incapable of feeling anything beyond his drive for idealized states of being---for him it is the idea of love, not love itself, or any emotion really, that drives him. Where Gatsby shows us how the wealthy damage and toy with the “common” people---The Rich Boy shows us how they damage themselves, even if they lack the ability to truly feel it.
November 26, 2015
This collection includes three stories - The Rich Boy, The Bridal Party, and The Last of the Belles - as well as a very nice introduction by John Updike, who shares the history of a little spat between Fitzgerald and Hemingway that was apparently instigated by a line in The Rich Boy. This line, which according to Fitzgerald scholar Matthew J. Bruccoli is one of Fitzgerald's "most promiscuously misquoted sentences", is about the rich and reads: “They are different from you and me.” Hemingway, in his story The Snows of Kilimanjaro, has his main character muse the following in a stream of consciousness:
Fitzgerald responded in a short but, I think, brilliant letter:
Oh, how I love Scott. The actual, complete passage in The Rich Boy is this:
Aside from all this, The Rich Boy is a great story and can be seen as an extension of The Great Gatsby in its examination of the interplay between wealth and character. The Bridal Party is also very good, and contains a significant amount of material from Fitzgerald's life. I did not care as much for the The Last of the Belles, but, and this I have stated before and will probably repeat until the end: as with any of Fitzgerald's stories, it is worth reading.
The rich were dull and they drank too much or they played too much backgammon. They were dull and they were repetitious. He remembered poor Scott Fitzgerald and his romantic awe of them and how he had started a story once that began, 'The rich are different from you and me.' And how someone had said to Scott, Yes, they have more money. But that was not humorous to Scott. He thought they were a special glamorous race and when he found they weren’t it wrecked him just as much as any other thing that wrecked him.
Fitzgerald responded in a short but, I think, brilliant letter:
Dear Ernest,
Please lay off me in print. If I choose to write de profundis sometimes it doesn’t mean I want friends praying aloud over my corpse. No doubt you meant it kindly but it cost me a night’s sleep. And when you incorporate it (the story) in a book would you mind cutting my name?
Oh, how I love Scott. The actual, complete passage in The Rich Boy is this:
Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand. They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves.
Aside from all this, The Rich Boy is a great story and can be seen as an extension of The Great Gatsby in its examination of the interplay between wealth and character. The Bridal Party is also very good, and contains a significant amount of material from Fitzgerald's life. I did not care as much for the The Last of the Belles, but, and this I have stated before and will probably repeat until the end: as with any of Fitzgerald's stories, it is worth reading.
September 18, 2018
When I hear a man proclaiming himself an “average, honest, open fellow”, I feel pretty sure that he has some definite and perhaps terrible abnormality which he has agree to conceal.
This was pretty much the only interesting thing about the story. I like this quote a lot.
I read The Rich Boy because episode 7 of Banana Fish is titled after this story. For the most part, I think it’s because of that above mentioned quote. There is almost nothing in common between Yut-Lung Lee (Banana Fish) and Anson Hunter (The Rich Boy).
I didn’t expect to like the hero and I didn’t. Anson comes from the old money and he makes himself even richer. He’s arrogant and haughty. His story might have been interesting if there were any point in it. There wasn’t. I don’t know why F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote it, but the tale about “unhappy rich boy” isn’t appealing.
My main issue however lies not with Anson, who’s rich and powerful and nothing bad happens to him in the end, despite his unsavory actions. I dislike how F. Scott Fitzgerald portrays women. All of the women are seen as pretty accessories to a man. It’s condescending and belittling.
All in all, apart from that quote, I didn’t like anything.
This was pretty much the only interesting thing about the story. I like this quote a lot.
I read The Rich Boy because episode 7 of Banana Fish is titled after this story. For the most part, I think it’s because of that above mentioned quote. There is almost nothing in common between Yut-Lung Lee (Banana Fish) and Anson Hunter (The Rich Boy).
I didn’t expect to like the hero and I didn’t. Anson comes from the old money and he makes himself even richer. He’s arrogant and haughty. His story might have been interesting if there were any point in it. There wasn’t. I don’t know why F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote it, but the tale about “unhappy rich boy” isn’t appealing.
My main issue however lies not with Anson, who’s rich and powerful and nothing bad happens to him in the end, despite his unsavory actions. I dislike how F. Scott Fitzgerald portrays women. All of the women are seen as pretty accessories to a man. It’s condescending and belittling.
All in all, apart from that quote, I didn’t like anything.
September 17, 2025
Out of all Fitzgerald's characters, I probably relate least to Anson, I mean, she was his! Nevertheless, this in no way detracted from my enjoyment of the story. Oh, but it was tragic what happened to Paula. And it was no less sorrowful seeing Anson on that vacation boat at the end when the narrator saw him and his change. It was the first time he didn't tell the narrator how he felt. There's something scary in that. When you know a person and are used to helping them sort their feelings and they suddenly either don't share or can't share and have nothing left anyway- truly disconcerting, and all the dancing and drinking Anson could do in the world on that yacht will never ever bring back what he had and what he was with Paula.
September 22, 2019
"Νομίζω ότι δεν μπορούσε να νιώσει ευτυχισμένος παρά μόνο δίπλα σε κάποια γυναίκα που να'ναι ερωτευμένη μαζί του και να αντιδρά στην γοητεία του όπως τα ρινίσματα του σιδήρου στον μαγνήτη, που να τον βοηθά να κατανοήσει τον εαυτό του, που να του υπόσχεται κάτι. Τι ήταν αυτό δεν ξέρω. Ίσως ότι θα υπήρχαν πάντα γυναίκες στον κόσμο πρόθυμες να διαθέσουν τις πιο λαμπερές, ζείδωρες, σπάνιες ώρες τους περιθάλποντας και διαφυλάσσοντας την ανωτερότητα που έτρεφε τόσο βαθιά στην καρδιά του."
Αν υπάρχει κάποιος που μπορεί να κάνει μια κοινωνική κριτική πάνω στον τρόπο ζωής και λειτουργίας της αστικής αριστοκρατικής τάξης της Νέας Υόρκης των '20s χωρίς να πλατειάσει και να κουράσει ανελέητα, αυτός είναι ο Fitzgerald. Τα χαρακτηριστικά της δικής του ζωής που έχουν ενσωματωθεί στο βιβλίο πάμπολλα, η πένα του ουσιώδης, ακριβής,πλούσια και πλήρης στον τρόπο που αποτυπώνει τα γνωρίσματα της εποχής. Ένα μικρό κείμενο κοινωνικού σχολιασμού στην ζωή που μάλλον αγάπησε να μισεί, προσωπικά πολύ πληρέστερο του "μεγάλου Γκάτσμπυ" και ας χάνει σε έκταση. Εξαιρετικός, ίσως ο καλύτερος της χαμένης γενιάς λογοτεχνών του αμερικανικού μεσοπολέμου.
Τρομακτικές οι ομοιότητες με την πραγματικότητα του καθενός μας, προφανώς σε συναισθηματική βάση και όχι υλική. Η μετάφραση αψεγάδιαστη επίσης. Διαβάστε το. (Ευχαριστώ για την πρόταση, ρωγμή).
Αν υπάρχει κάποιος που μπορεί να κάνει μια κοινωνική κριτική πάνω στον τρόπο ζωής και λειτουργίας της αστικής αριστοκρατικής τάξης της Νέας Υόρκης των '20s χωρίς να πλατειάσει και να κουράσει ανελέητα, αυτός είναι ο Fitzgerald. Τα χαρακτηριστικά της δικής του ζωής που έχουν ενσωματωθεί στο βιβλίο πάμπολλα, η πένα του ουσιώδης, ακριβής,πλούσια και πλήρης στον τρόπο που αποτυπώνει τα γνωρίσματα της εποχής. Ένα μικρό κείμενο κοινωνικού σχολιασμού στην ζωή που μάλλον αγάπησε να μισεί, προσωπικά πολύ πληρέστερο του "μεγάλου Γκάτσμπυ" και ας χάνει σε έκταση. Εξαιρετικός, ίσως ο καλύτερος της χαμένης γενιάς λογοτεχνών του αμερικανικού μεσοπολέμου.
Τρομακτικές οι ομοιότητες με την πραγματικότητα του καθενός μας, προφανώς σε συναισθηματική βάση και όχι υλική. Η μετάφραση αψεγάδιαστη επίσης. Διαβάστε το. (Ευχαριστώ για την πρόταση, ρωγμή).
September 2, 2024
"The Rich Boy" is a short story that chronicles the life of a rich boy and his love endeavors. The story reminded me of 'This side of Paradise' only shorter.
June 19, 2025
Fitzgerald hat die Geschichte eines früheren Kommilitonen aus dem Leben abgeschrieben und diese dem Modell sogar für Korrekturen und Striche von allzu persönlichen Details vorgelegt. Erzähltechnisch ist diese stille oder alltägliche Tragödie dasselbe Muster wie Gatsby, doch neben dem ikonischen Roman mit seiner thematischen Polyphonie wirkt der reiche junge Mann wie ein Kiesel oder eine Murmel im Vergleich zu einem Brillanten.
August 16, 2025
I really enjoyed it. It was romantic but not like those trendy love stories we have nowadays. It was love + logic and could give us a good sense of social atmosphere of that time.
July 22, 2015
Fitzgerald writes best when he hews close to what he knows: privileged society men whose personal misfortunes stem primarily from misapprehending some key life wisdom. For Gatsby, it was that his Daisy was but a whisper of the past (incidentally, Judy Jones in 'Winter Dreams' serves a similar purpose, although more flesh-and-blood yet with less likability); for Anson of 'The Rich Boy', it was that a woman would, if pushed, marry another rich boy. Fitzgerald's writing here is more observational, as if documenting the excesses of one of his Princeton peers from school. 'The Rich Boy' succeeds in its subtlety, and comes alive in the detail: Anson's subtle social denouement, from being a confidant to his newly-married Yale friends to being a forgotten piece of furniture in their lives. Gatsby never had detail like this.
And yet Fitzgerald's great success lies in telling age-old stories using beautiful prose and beautiful people, with plenty of bombast. 'The Rich Boy' lacked the golden lacquer that elevated Gatsby (which was written earlier; 'The Rich Boy' was written while Gatsby was waiting to be published, and clearly is an extension of the themes raised in the novel.) For lovers of Gatsby, perhaps this book serves as a fitting extension of Jay Gatsby's world and a thoughtful imagining of what an associate of his might look like up close.
'Winter Dreams' is another partygoer to the Gatsby fête. Think of it as a thought experiment: "What if Gatsby pursued Jordan Baker?" 'Absolution' is probably the most screwball of the three, obtuse and interesting (given that the 'hero' of the story is a young boy, confessing to a priest), but writing about obsessive Catholic meditations (the theme of being profane at communion, eg) is much better executed by not-quite-contemporary Graham Greene.
And yet Fitzgerald's great success lies in telling age-old stories using beautiful prose and beautiful people, with plenty of bombast. 'The Rich Boy' lacked the golden lacquer that elevated Gatsby (which was written earlier; 'The Rich Boy' was written while Gatsby was waiting to be published, and clearly is an extension of the themes raised in the novel.) For lovers of Gatsby, perhaps this book serves as a fitting extension of Jay Gatsby's world and a thoughtful imagining of what an associate of his might look like up close.
'Winter Dreams' is another partygoer to the Gatsby fête. Think of it as a thought experiment: "What if Gatsby pursued Jordan Baker?" 'Absolution' is probably the most screwball of the three, obtuse and interesting (given that the 'hero' of the story is a young boy, confessing to a priest), but writing about obsessive Catholic meditations (the theme of being profane at communion, eg) is much better executed by not-quite-contemporary Graham Greene.
April 15, 2011
"They are different from you and me."
This is the centerpiece of Fitzgerald's novella. It's a trap. People start comparing themselves to the rich, as "you and me", and naturally, not being rich, we see the negative differences. They are pompous (because we are not). They are spoiled (and we are not). Etcetera. As empirically hypocritical as it is, like any bigotry, it is blinding. There is absolutely nothing unbiased or fair about comparing the rich and the not rich so I doubt we'll ever realize the true difference in human quality, if any.
Fitzgerald does exploit Anson Hunter's superiority complex. Because of economic power, a kind of factual superiority, Anson is taught, or nurtured, that normalcy is being sought after and envied. The question raised for me from the story is this: Is this Anson's fault? So often we see poor people as victims of their inherited circumstance. Can rich people be victimized as well?
Anson doesn't settle down, though he wants to. His friends and acquaintances marry and start lives while he never takes that step. And what hurts him most is that he is not wanted as he was as a child. He has no method of coping with the idea that a woman would want to marry someone other than him. And he entertains an affair in which he has no interest just to bolster his own sense of superiority.
And after all this, and he is left behind, we, as readers, might feel sympathetic for him. We might even see him as a victim of his inherited circumstance. Because we know the kind of life that he has lead, with its depressions, and unless he changes, which he won't, he's doomed to sink over and over.
But how is that different from you and me?
This is the centerpiece of Fitzgerald's novella. It's a trap. People start comparing themselves to the rich, as "you and me", and naturally, not being rich, we see the negative differences. They are pompous (because we are not). They are spoiled (and we are not). Etcetera. As empirically hypocritical as it is, like any bigotry, it is blinding. There is absolutely nothing unbiased or fair about comparing the rich and the not rich so I doubt we'll ever realize the true difference in human quality, if any.
Fitzgerald does exploit Anson Hunter's superiority complex. Because of economic power, a kind of factual superiority, Anson is taught, or nurtured, that normalcy is being sought after and envied. The question raised for me from the story is this: Is this Anson's fault? So often we see poor people as victims of their inherited circumstance. Can rich people be victimized as well?
Anson doesn't settle down, though he wants to. His friends and acquaintances marry and start lives while he never takes that step. And what hurts him most is that he is not wanted as he was as a child. He has no method of coping with the idea that a woman would want to marry someone other than him. And he entertains an affair in which he has no interest just to bolster his own sense of superiority.
And after all this, and he is left behind, we, as readers, might feel sympathetic for him. We might even see him as a victim of his inherited circumstance. Because we know the kind of life that he has lead, with its depressions, and unless he changes, which he won't, he's doomed to sink over and over.
But how is that different from you and me?
February 3, 2024
a short story which reminds me that money doesn't guarantee your happiness and even though the ending is open to imagination of how anson hunter will end up, i really hope happiness is what will he get 🙏
January 14, 2024
(4.5 ⭐ rounded up)
if you know me well, you'll know that i love me some fitzgerald from time to time to feel ✨ something ✨
yes, we once again have melancholy oozing out of the text.
yes, we once again have highly obnoxious characters.
yes, we once again talk about rich people, parties and the void in the soul that comes with them.
yes, once again we talk about crashed dreams, loneliness, losing the hope for it all.
but did it work?
hell, yeah, it did.
dare i say i liked it as much as gatsby? which is crazy bc gatsby is unmatched to me.
anyways, pls read it. you'll question your life about 984854 times. oh what fun times!
if you know me well, you'll know that i love me some fitzgerald from time to time to feel ✨ something ✨
yes, we once again have melancholy oozing out of the text.
yes, we once again have highly obnoxious characters.
yes, we once again talk about rich people, parties and the void in the soul that comes with them.
yes, once again we talk about crashed dreams, loneliness, losing the hope for it all.
but did it work?
hell, yeah, it did.
dare i say i liked it as much as gatsby? which is crazy bc gatsby is unmatched to me.
anyways, pls read it. you'll question your life about 984854 times. oh what fun times!
August 31, 2021
Basically just a collection of sob storys about rich, white males in the 1920s who experience minor inconveniences in their lives and feel the need to go off the rails and cry a bit after being rejected by women. Also fuck F Scott Fitzgerald.
July 28, 2025
less dramatic than i hoped somehow, i hoped for more yearning and hopelessness (the good kind)
June 17, 2025
Fitzgerald’s writing never ceases to comfort and captivate me
(read the Penguin archive edition with the stories May Day and Absolution)
(read the Penguin archive edition with the stories May Day and Absolution)
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September 21, 2012Because summer's kiss is fading, and even when you're not a great enthusiast for summer, that always evokes a certain melancholy, I felt the need for some Fitzgerald. But not Tender is the Night, not yet, because once I've read that there are no more novels. And my mammoth selection of his shorts is wonderful, but not really something to slip in one's pocket and read in the twilight by the waterside, or perching in the acid grassland, so finding this slim edition of three stories in the library was perfect. As are two of the stories, the title piece and 'The Last of the Belles'. Scott's shorts get a bad press, usually considered the hackwork that stopped him writing more novels (I suppose in a sense I cleaved to that by wanting to save Tender), but that gift of his for evoking the perfect, fragile moment, and the sadness of the moment's passing - you don't need more than 20 pages for a hit of that. And if there's a certain set of elements which are likely to appear, a family resemblance between the stories - well, isn't that true of Saki, Borges, Chekhov, all the masters of the form?
December 31, 2017
So beautiful. So, so raw and vulnerable and captivating. The bittersweet conversations of an imagined past and a cherished love which couldn’t withstand his superiority.
He searches for happiness through others’ relationships because he can’t fully open up in his own...
‘I was infatuated with you, Anson - you could make me do anything you liked. But we wouldn’t have been happy. I’m not smart enough for you. I don’t like things to be complicated like you do’ ... wow this was powerful. My favourite quotation from the short story... a mark of how love is sometimes not enough.
He searches for happiness through others’ relationships because he can’t fully open up in his own...
‘I was infatuated with you, Anson - you could make me do anything you liked. But we wouldn’t have been happy. I’m not smart enough for you. I don’t like things to be complicated like you do’ ... wow this was powerful. My favourite quotation from the short story... a mark of how love is sometimes not enough.
September 21, 2022
Πολύ καλό διήγημα, συμπυκνωμένο και λιτό, περιγράφει τη στάση ζωής του ήρωα και παραθέτει κοινωνικό σχολιασμό για τις αστικές τάξεις της Νέας Υόρκης του μεσοπολέμου. Βεβαίως οποιοσδήποτε παραλληλισμός με τη δίκη μας σημερινή πραγματικότητα είναι ταιριαστός, κάτι που το κάνει να φαίνεται μοντέρνο και φρέσκο.
June 22, 2016
Insustancial. Creo que abandono a este escritor que me deslumbro en Gatsby.
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March 29, 2021This novella was based on someone Fitzgerald knew in school, Ludlow Fowler, though when this was first published the said friend asked for some passages removed. These passages have readded to this publication. Anson Hunter is our "rich boy" and has only been in love with one girl, Paula, but he chose not to marry her and she left him. He has numerous affairs, but no one can compare to Paula.
This one was okay. Anson Hunter was an okay at first, but his arrogance and his expectations of women is irritating. He expects woman to on his level of intelligence and awareness, but to me this limiting. He's probably a realistic character, though. Once again, I liked Fitzgerald's writing style and I thought it interesting that he wrote about his friend. I appreciate his friend was cool with it as it doesn't make him look good, it's brutally honest, but I do wonder what passages he originally wanted removed.
This one was okay. Anson Hunter was an okay at first, but his arrogance and his expectations of women is irritating. He expects woman to on his level of intelligence and awareness, but to me this limiting. He's probably a realistic character, though. Once again, I liked Fitzgerald's writing style and I thought it interesting that he wrote about his friend. I appreciate his friend was cool with it as it doesn't make him look good, it's brutally honest, but I do wonder what passages he originally wanted removed.
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March 12, 2024"Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different form you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand. They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are better than we are. They are different."
July 12, 2025
Each tale reveals a new side to the hopeless romantics among the elite. Moral of the story is, lower ur ego, be grateful to ppl who loves u, and feel.
Their arrogant attitude is what drawn us to them, and yes it’s normal for us to feel detested but that’s the whole point- to understand their pov, their lost and gain.
Their arrogant attitude is what drawn us to them, and yes it’s normal for us to feel detested but that’s the whole point- to understand their pov, their lost and gain.
May 9, 2020
The Rich Boy has, most of the time, the very same voice as The Great Gatsby does - not only that; it instills in the reader the same feelings of the main character's airy solitude. Definitely one of the best short stories Scott Fitzgerald ever wrote!
May 11, 2022
I really enjoy F.Scott Fitzgeralds writing. He paints a brilliant picture of a certain ( mostly wealthy) type of American life style. In these 3 long short stories the main character is wealthy but ultimately leads an empty life. I felt quite sad for these characters
May 31, 2023
Similar to three Great Gatsby in many good ways, really invokes that 20s style and lots of great imagery and interesting commentary. Easy to read in a quick sitting and beautifully melancholic. Definitely recommend.
February 27, 2021
3,5*
Ωραία γραφή .
Δεν τρελάθηκα με την ιστορία.
Ωραία γραφή .
Δεν τρελάθηκα με την ιστορία.
May 9, 2025
that last line troubled me deeply 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
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