The story was written as a sequel to “The Ice Palace,” and Clark Darrow appears in both. The omniscient narrator, who ensures that close observation is paid to Powell’s story, draws in the reader. The opening line – “Jim Powell was a Jelly-bean”- labels the protagonist immediately, and as a character he remains within the stereotype Fitzgerald indicates, though he almost manages to break free.
The history of Powell’s life presents a tale of a family fallen on hard times. Powell is humiliated by the whisperings of the social set and chooses notoriety over civility. He fights for his country aged eighteen and returns at twenty-one with ill-fitting, unfashionable clothes which symbolize how he does not “fit” in society.
Powell contrasts with the attractive and dynamic Clark Darrow. He is unsure of whether to go to the party Darrow invites him to, but Nancy Lamar, with her “mouth like a remembered kiss,” entrances him. The simile is a romantic one, as although Powell has always known Nancy, she has never been attainable to him.
Its a small town story with all its class divides and Fitzgerald builds some very believable caracters around which his story evolves.