The Cut-Glass Bowl

A wedding gift that reflects far more than light—echoing every fracture in a woman’s life.

Written in 1920 and published in The Saturday Evening Post on February 19, 1920, The Cut-Glass Bowl stands apart from many of Fitzgerald’s early short stories for its somber tone and symbolic weight. While most of his contemporaneous tales reveled in Jazz Age sparkle, this one quietly mourns the cost of appearances, reputation, and regret.

Drawing inspiration from Henry James and Edith Wharton, Fitzgerald crafts a domestic tragedy with the precision of a master—and a surprising sense of maturity for a 24-year-old.

The Story
When Evylyn Piper marries, she receives a striking wedding gift: a large cut-glass bowl from a cynical acquaintance, who declares that she’s “as hard and as beautiful” as the bowl itself.

From that moment on, the bowl becomes more than a mere decoration—it becomes a silent witness, and perhaps an agent, in the slow unraveling of her life. During moments of marital tension, personal betrayal, and maternal tragedy, the bowl is always there: glittering, weighty, unyielding.

As years pass, Evylyn moves from youthful vanity to resigned sorrow, her life punctuated by the bowl’s gleam—and, eventually, by the sound of it shattering.

The Cut-Glass Bowl is a meditation on object permanence, both literal and emotional. It’s about the beauty we display, the judgments we invite, and the delicate edge between elegance and cruelty.

Published: February 19, 1920 (The Saturday Evening Post)