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The Rich Boy In The Great Gatsby

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Fitzgerald’s short story, “The Rich Boy” is part of the Gatsby cluster stories and is a stand out piece as it was written after the novel and published in 1926. Fitzgerald admitted and wrote to his friend, Ludlow Flower, that the story’s main character, Anson Hunter was based on him: “I have written a fifteen thousand word story about you called The Rich Boy—it is so disguised that no one except you and me and maybe two of the girls concerned would recognize, unless you give it away, but it is in a large measure the story of your life, toned down here and there and simplified. Also many gaps had to come out of my imagination. It is frank, unsparing but sympathetic and I think you will like it—it is one of the best things I have ever [d]one. “ (Fitzgerald 152, 1980) Originally the short story was published in two parts in the Red Book, later on it was added to the “All the Sad Young Men “collection after some editing on Flowers’ request. Like “The Great Gatsby”, this work of Fitzgerald also dwells on his mixed feelings and attitude towards the very rich. In the third paragraph of the narration he wrote: “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 …show more content…

He is the rich boy, who cannot see past his superiority therefore end up emotionally numb, someone who cannot commit and maintain a steady relationship. Even when he fell in love with Paula Lagendre, he fails to take action. Paula leaves him for his lack of character, which turns Anson into a cynic. “In "The Rich Boy" Fitzgerald uses many of the themes--among them, lost youth and disillusionment in marriage--that he had covered in previous stories; in addition, he uses devices such as the narrator-observer point of view that had been successful in The Great

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