The Beautiful and Damned: Chapter 9 Summary & Analysis

Even Muriel Kane, who used to be the butt of all the jokes at parties, has cleaned up her act, demonstrating that Anthony’s drunkenness and unemployment are both embarrassing and a childish holdover from days past. The question of whether it is money or integrity that defines the aristocratic class is discouraging to Anthony and Gloria, who are realizing that they have neither.

Unable to accept responsibility for the strain in his and Maury’s relationship, Anthony acts as though the falling out was a tragic twist of fate. He and Maury seem to agree on the pointlessness of working, but Maury’s way of dealing with this existential realization has unequivocally worked out better for him. In order to deal with his frustration over the matter, Anthony digs himself even deeper into poverty and inability to work by spending large amounts of money on alcohol. Gloria has stopped supporting his irresponsibility, which even the socially inept Muriel can identify.

Anthony’s drinking has become such a part of his character that his drunkenness is no longer visible to acquaintances. Anthony and Gloria’s dysfunction has settled into a routine that is disturbing to Muriel but completely normal to Gloria, who knows no other reality.

Left alone, Gloria does not have the means to buy things on credit the way Anthony can, but must rely on only the change in her purse. She must therefore sink deeper into her loneliness, isolating herself at home. Despite seeing the increasing problem of Anthony’s alcoholism, Gloria drinks out of boredom. The narrator’s comment about the age of Gloria’s gesture once again recalls the idea that Gloria is a representation of something beyond her individual self. She is beauty, but she is also countless victims of society.

Anthony’s solution to his dwindling finances is further social isolation as well. His drinking causes friction with Gloria and makes them both lonelier in their marriage, but he cannot bring himself not to drink because it snaps him back into reality. Anthony is becoming disillusioned about the importance of beauty, but he does not want this disillusionment. His mocking of Gloria for her obsession with beauty products is hypocritical for this reason.

Dick’s concern demonstrates how far behind Anthony has been left by his friends as they have advanced into adulthood. Dick, once the least successful of the three friends, now looks down upon Anthony as a childish, extravagant spender. Anthony resists criticism by making fun of Maury in the way he and Maury used to make fun of Dick. Dick uses the opportunity to once again reflect on his own comparative success.

Anthony does everything he can to rationalize his own position in life. His attempts rely on his ability to demonstrate himself as superior to Dick, which is difficult now that Dick has made a name for himself. Anthony settles for disgust at Dick’s self-satisfaction, but he can’t deny that Dick has far more reason than Anthony for self-satisfaction. Dick’s continued hard work, even after a modicum of success, contrasts with Anthony’s pathetic drunkenness in the back of the cab.

Anthony and Gloria have habitually been trapped by their own inertia, but every time they think their situation can get no worse, they seem to find a way to dig themselves into a deeper hole. As the time passes and they sink deeper into unhappiness, the only thing sustaining them is the hope of the lawsuit they are by no means guaranteed to win.

Anthony should not be surprised that his bank account has been closed, but he acts as though it is a horrible shock because he has been in denial over the true state of his finances. Growing older without the material trappings of aristocracy is such a terrifying prospect to Gloria that she would rather die young than cut back on expenses. Anthony also vocalizes the reality that the huge investment in the lawsuit may have been foolish. The panic the couple feels is not necessarily an acceptance of reality but rather the creation of another fantasy, one of melodrama, that is a welcome interruption to their usual depressive routine.

The couple’s persistence in their youthful ways this far into adulthood has cut them off entirely from the friendships they once forged through these selfsame youthful ways. Anthony makes a show of being protective over Gloria, but when she asks for money for the basic necessity of food, he proves unable to resist retreating into the illusion of safety that drinking offers him.

Still believing himself deserving of everything he wants, including alcohol, Anthony finds ways to obtain it at the expense of good social conduct. Anthony’s interaction with Maury demonstrates just how far Anthony has fallen out of social grace, ironically achieving the separation from the masses he has always coveted. Anthony’s decision to go after Bloeckman rather than do something more useful to Gloria, such as provide food, shows that his protectiveness over her is rooted in performativity and the desire to prove himself.

In the midst of Anthony’s disgraceful display of public drunkenness, he fails to see that he is the one who is acting deplorably, not Bloeckman. The more he embarrasses himself, the more he feels the need to assert his social superiority to Bloeckman by pointing out such things as Bloeckman’s Jewishness and Anthony’s own connection to Adam Patch, even though Adam Patch effectively severed this connection before his death. Anthony’s refusal to give his address shows that he is worried that he will be found out as a fraud. He would prefer to sit on the sidewalk, in complete social disgrace, than let it be known that he lives in a middle-class apartment.

Anthony’s reflection on the distasteful events of the trial show that he knows he has cornered himself into either financial ruin, social disgrace, or both. He clings to the hope that if he and Gloria win the lawsuit, he can make an exile of himself and start fresh—but even his idea of starting fresh involves a retreat to the nostalgic landscape of his youthful European jaunt with Maury. Although Anthony and Gloria’s concern over their advancing age has seemed foolish up to now, it seems that Anthony’s age actually is catching up to him because he has lived so recklessly. It might be too late to set his life back on course for the future, so he will instead try to live in the past. This nostalgic longing also proves dangerous when Dorothy shows up, bringing his past into violent collision with his present.

The fact that Dorothy was able to track Anthony down via the news indicates the extent of the disgraceful scandal he has created around himself. Dorothy’s pleas with Anthony to hit her reveal her own psychological pain, but they also raise the question of whether or not Anthony can hit her. It is not clear during the scene whether Dorothy is actually there or whether the scene takes place in Anthony’s tortured mind.

The lingering smell of perfume when Gloria and Dick arrive seems to suggest that Dorothy was in fact in the apartment. However, her absence and the evidence that Anthony simply threw the chair on the ground indicates that the conflict was less between Anthony and Dorothy than between Anthony and himself. The altercation has left Anthony completely unable to communicate, trapped in the sanctuary of his bathroom and repeating his youthful attempts at escapism by thumbing through his stamp collection.

Anthony has achieved his goal of becoming a public figure, but he is regarded with pity and derision instead of awe and respect. He has also ruined not only his life but also Shuttleworth’s life. Gloria is mysteriously absent from the scene. Her disappearance (eight years after meeting Anthony, and fifteen years after the scene in which the narrator introduced Beauty as a character) confirms that she has functioned throughout the novel as the embodiment of beauty, always destined to disappear after fifteen years in Jazz-Age New York. Anthony’s final line is not inaccurate. He is a victor, having finally won the appealed lawsuit. However, to echo the novel’s epigraph, the spoils of victory have destroyed his chance at real happiness and success.