The tone of The Beautiful and Damned is pompous and reckless, particularly in its use of extravagant language and long, drawn-out sentences. In Chapter 1, the narrator gives a dramatic description of the story's protagonist:
In 1913, when Anthony Patch was twenty-five, two years were already gone since irony, the Holy Ghost of this later day, had, theoretically at least, descended upon him. Irony was the final polish of the shoe, the ultimate dab of the clothes-brush, a sort of intellectual “There!”—yet at the brink of this story he has as yet gone no further than the conscious stage.
At first glance, the narrator's grand language seems to elevate Anthony's character. However, as the story progresses, it becomes clear that the narrator is using this language to expose Anthony's self-aggrandizing attitude. In this passage, the narrator combines concrete information about the year and Anthony's age with highfalutin' abstraction. Many commas interrupt the sentence. This recalls the general disruption of Anthony's own mind. He tries to be intellectually complex, but he lacks practical intelligence and originality.
This tone continues throughout the story and provides a continual reminder of the way in which characters strive to preserve their illusions and justify their own selfishness. Many characters, especially Anthony and Gloria, believe that they are the center of their own universe, and the narrator communicates this by making ordinary circumstances seem ridiculously extravagant. For instance, when Gloria eats gum-drops, the narrator says that "Gloria was chewing an amazing gum-drop and staring moodily out the window." The strange placement of "amazing" reveals her obsession with the sweet treat and alludes to her peculiar tastes and demands. It also points to the impossibility of her own happiness; even as she enjoys the treat she stares "moodily" out the window. In this case and many others, the liberal use of dramatic language serves as a condemnation of the characters' irrational behavior.
