The Beautiful and the Damned
F. Scott Fitzgerald (1922)
"Geraldine," he said, at length, "in the first place I have no one I want to marry; in the second place I haven't enough money to support two people; in the third place I am entirely opposed to marriage for people of my type; in the fourth place I have a strong distaste for even the abstract consideration of it."
But Geraldine only narrowed her eyes knowingly, made her clicking sound, and said she must be going. It was late.
"Call me up soon," she reminded him as he kissed her goodbye, "you haven't for three weeks, you know."
"I will," he promised fervently.
He shut the door and coming back into the room stood for a moment lost in thought with the tennis ball still clasped in his hand. There was one of his lonelinesses coming, one of those times when he walked the streets or sat, aimless and depressed, biting a pencil at his desk. It was a self-absorption with no comfort, a demand for expression with no outlet, a sense of time rushing by, ceaselessly and wastefully—assuaged only by that conviction that there was nothing to waste, because all efforts and attainments were equally valueless.
He thought with emotion—aloud, ejaculative, for he was hurt and confused.
"No idea of getting married, by God!"
Of a sudden he hurled the tennis ball violently across the room, where it barely missed the lamp, and, rebounding here and there for a moment, lay still upon the floor.
An excerpt from the short story "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1892)
I don’t feel as if it was worth while to turn my hand over for anything, and I’m getting dreadfully fretful and querulous.
I cry at nothing, and cry most of the time.
Of course I don’t when John is here, or anybody else, but when I am alone.
And I am alone a good deal just now. John is kept in town very often by serious cases, and Jennie is good and lets me alone when I want her to.
So I walk a little in the garden or down that lovely lane, sit on the porch under the roses, and lie down up here a good deal.
I’m getting really fond of the room in spite of the wall-paper. Perhaps BECAUSE of the wall-paper.
It dwells in my mind so!
I lie here on this great immovable bed—it is nailed down, I believe—and follow that pattern about by the hour. It is as good as gymnastics, I assure you. I start, we’ll say, at the bottom, down in the corner over there where it has not been touched, and I determine for the thousandth time that I WILL follow that pointless pattern to some sort of a conclusion.
I know a little of the principle of design, and I know this thing was not arranged on any laws of radiation, or alternation, or repetition, or symmetry, or anything else that I ever heard of.
Based on information from BOTH excerpts, which draws the MOST logical conclusion?
Responses
A Both authors knew each other and collaborated on their story lines.Both authors knew each other and collaborated on their story lines.
B Both narratives will address the internal conflicts of their characters.Both narratives will address the internal conflicts of their characters.
C The narratives will change to address increasingly intense external conflicts.The narratives will change to address increasingly intense external conflicts.
D Both authors will modify the point of view to allow for an omniscient perspective.Both authors will modify the point of view to allow for an omniscient perspective.