BOOK REPORT

Submitted by: Muhammad Umar Qureshi

MSSE 2015-2017
11-04-2016
Book Title: The Rich Boy
Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald

About the Author

Francis Scott Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 December 21, 1940) was an
American author of novels and short stories. He is regarded as one of the greatest
twentieth century writers.
He wrote four complete novels: This Side of Paradise, The Beautiful and
Damned, The Great Gatsby (his best known), and Tender Is the Night. A fifth,
unfinished novel, The Love of the Last Tycoon was published after his death. He
also wrote a dozens of short stories that treat themes of youth, despair and age.

Summary
The Rich Boy is a short story written by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. The
story was written in 1924 and published in 1926. The story takes place during the
period of 1865 1912 and focuses on a protagonist who is the friend of the
narrator. The narrator states that there are many lies which the poor tell about the
rich and which the rich tell about themselves. There is also one fact about the rich
that they think themselves better than other people no matter what happens to
them. The narrator starts to tell the story of Anson Hunter, the rich boy.
Anson, the eldest of six children, was born into an established and fashionable New
York family of wealth and status. The family spent summers in a large estate in
Connecticut (a US state) to protect the children from the snobbish and formalized
vulgarity of the time. At eighteen he went to study at Yale, New Haven,
Connecticut. He was not only handsome but also possessed a style that was
enough to make the people passing by him on the street to know that he was a
rich boy. His dominance prevented him from being a success at Yale and so he
shifted the center of his life to New York. His aims were conventional, he was not
burdened by any ideals.
The narrator met Anson for the first time in the summer of 1917. Anson had just
graduated from Yale and entered the naval aviation forces. Being of a vulgar and
cheery character and always in search of pleasure, Anson surprised everyone by
falling in love with a conservative and serious girl. Her name was Paula Legendre
and she was from California. The couple spent their time together by leading a
long, serious dialogue, though about nothing in particular. After some time they
agreed to marry and the next day Paula told Anson that she was rich, too.
Paula was the most obedient of the couple. She perceived two personalities in
Anson. When they were alone, he was strong and attractive, but when in company,
he was uncivilized and careless. When they were together, their desire made the

old serious dialogue impossible. It continued only in letters. Later the dialogue was
replaced by a prolonged quarrel. Anson got drunk and missed an engagement with
Paula, on which Paula made demands on his conduct. They still kept on exchanging
passionately affectionate letters. Paula started drifting around and meeting new
men. Anson started to work in Wall Street and soon made a considerable fortune of
his own. He took pleasure in helping people, mostly his former classmates in New
York, and became a popular figure among them. When he learned that Paula had a
serious affair with one Lowell Thayer, a Bostonian of wealth and position, he felt
that he might lose her after all. He went to Florida to see her. She looked pale and
tired, having been in society for some four or five years. He had known her for
three, now being the year 1920. Paula and Anson were passionately reconciled but
Anson failed to propose to her. Tired with waiting for so long, she married Thayer
that April.
In 1922 Anson reached the age of twenty-seven and was taken into the firm. He
was liked and trusted in his job. He paid attention to appearances, on Sunday
mornings he taught in a fashionable Episcopal Sunday-school. Still he continued in
his bursts of rough conversation and habit of getting drunk whenever he felt like it.
His attitude to women was protective but he certainly knew how to make use of
the chance when a girl was willing to surrender. He started an affair with Dolly
Karger, daughter of a publicist who had married into society. Dolly was wild and
unrestrained, she was often in love and often abandoned her lovers when they
started to bore her. She wanted both the unrestricted sympathy and protective
strength which Anson had to offer. With Anson she was first intent on securing
herself a good match but later she got overwhelmed by love. At a certain point
Anson recognized that he must either accept the responsibility and marry Dolly or
break up with her. He wrote her a farewell letter but a note by Dolly reached him
before he could send his own. Dolly was cancelling the planned weekend trip
because her admirer, Perry Hull from Chicago, arrived unexpectedly to the town.
Anson saw that the letter was designed to provoke his jealousy. It provoked his
stubbornness and self-indulgence instead. He tore his own letter and went to see
Dolly. He reproached her and she eventually apologized for her note and
accompanied him to the trip. They were supposed to spend the night together and
the occasion was perfectly planned. When they were left alone, Dolly clung to
Anson, told him she loved him and demanded him to say the same, even if it
should not be truth. Anson recalled himself when a picture of Paula came to his
mind. He left Dolly alone and told her to wait for someone to love her because he
did not.
Dolly married the next autumn, and Anson felt that the history was repeated. He
stopped drinking for a year because of his health. He continued helping people in

need of advice. He started doing so out of pride and superiority but gradually it
became his habit and passion. He was especially fond of assisting young couples.
Paula divorced and soon remarried another man from Boston. Anson thought he
would never marry himself because he saw too much of stressed marriages and
divorces in his life. At twenty-eight he considered marrying without romantic love,
realizing that a marriage for love was unlikely to happen to him. At this time he
was reached by the gossip that his Aunt Edna, the wife of Uncle Robert, was having
an affair with an immoral youth named Cary Sloane. He was disturbed by the news
and worried about his three young cousins, the offspring of the eighteen-year-long
marriage. Robert Hunter had married Edna when she was poor, and the couple
owed their present fortune to his own fathers effort. Anson warned Edna to stop
the affair or he would do it himself. Naturally, Edna at first denied all, but then
Ansons arguments broke her. She admitted and complained of her husbands
neglect. Anson had a talk with both Edna and her lover together and made them
accept his conditions. Sloane was to leave the town for six months and after his
return Edna could seek a legal divorce if she wished so. Or, if Edna was ready to
leave her children, she could escape with her lover. The lovers chose the first
option. Anson felt proud of himself when he drove his aunt back home, the matters
having been arranged. The following morning Sloane was found dead under a
bridge.
Anson had fixed Ednas affair but lost Uncle Roberts memorable friendship.
Ansons mother died and he became the head of the family. Anson agreed to sell
the summer hall in Connecticut because it was not profitable to keep it any more.
At twenty-nine Anson started to experience loneliness. His former friends withdrew
into their own family circles and having been already well established, they needed
Anson no more. A week before his thirtieth birthday Anson attended the wedding
of his last single friend in his usual role of the best man. After the ceremony he had
nowhere to go. The Yale Club which he went frequently was almost empty.
At thirty Anson fell into a deep depression. His age was his primary worry. The
older members of the firm made Anson go abroad for the summer because his
harsh doubt started to affect his performance at work. Anson resisted at first,
claiming that if he left, he would never return to work again. Anson learned that
Paula had died in childbirth. Strangely enough, it did not evoke any emotion in him.
The narrator observes how striking the change in Anson was. The narrator
accompanied Anson on his trip. He did not see much of him during it because
Anson soon picked a girl and started to flirt with her. The narrator was however
pleased that Anson became himself again. The narrator believes that what Anson
needed for his existence were such women in the world who would spend their

brightest, freshest, rarest hours to nurse and protect that superiority he cherished
in his heart.

Conclusion
The Rich Boy was a good book to read and I liked it. The author presents the
differences between the life of rich and poor in his conversational style. The
character of Anson Hunter perfectly illustrates a common shortcoming of the world
of the rich, which is the lack of sincere emotion and consequent loneliness. Ansons
problem is his firm belief of his own superiority. This seems to hinder him from
loving anyone more than himself. He may have loved Paula, as he claims, but still
he loved his independence more when he failed to propose to her. This seems to
be in accord with the opinion of the first-person narrator (the author), who
assumes the position of an uninvolved observer in the story, but gives his
comment on Anson in the concluding sentences of story.