Character Analysis
Rosemary Hoyt
Rosemary Hoyt is continually associated with the movies not only because she is an actress and is actually seen on the set, but also because her vision is oddly cinematic. In the 1951 version of the novel, the chapter told from her point of view is called "Rosemary's Angle." just as the word "angle" describes the range or tilt of a camera lens, so are her perceptions broad-ranging and photographically superficial at first glance. When she scans the people on the Riviera beach she sees the drama immediately, and when she falls in love with Dick, she does so precipitously, almost as if she were performing in a two-hour matinee. But just as a photograph can suggest rich and imaginative dramatic possibilities, so are Rosemary's often seemingly superficial responses often more profound than she knows. Fitzgerald uses these early innocent perceptions of Rosemary's to sharpen the descriptions of the other characters.
Rosemary develops only minimally within the novel, moving from an immature, childish starlet uncertain of her future to a fairly self-assured star, certain of her future. She will, however, remain content to live in a man's world. She seems, in the last scenes, prepared to marry her leading man and live happily ever after in the best Hollywood tradition.