This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald
In both style and form, This Side of Paradise is Fitzgerald's novel of apprenticeship because he is clearly striving to demonstrate both his technical virtuosity and his seriousness in purpose (Kahn 39). To display his mastery of literary form, Fitzgerald creates a novel that is a pastiche of poems, letters, lists, and even a play in three acts embedded within a prose narrative (123). At some times the novel seems movie or film-like. This is illustrated by the chapters being subdivided into subheadings such as "Snapshots of the Young Egotist" and "The Superman Grows Careless". The effect of these various narrative strategies is original and exuberant, conveying the brash self-confidence of Fitzgerald and his fictional hero (123). It also conveys a youthful enthusiasm perfectly in sync with its time and place, helping to develop the plot's structure and style. Fitzgerald divides the plot of his novel into two books. Book One, entitled "The Romantic Egotist," focuses on Amory's childhood, youth at a prep school and career at Princeton University. Book Two, entitled "The Education of a Personage," shows the process by which Amory gathers stature. Book Two marks the shift of the narrative voice from soliloquy to dramatic monologue (
For example, the fact that he was to get no more money from the rail companies. The effect of this is to suggest that the war separates Amory's life into two distinctive halves (123). On the other hand, his ghost function as a conscience. His pursuit of each woman underscores the nature of his quest and one of the very themes of the novel- the tragic waste of human potential in pursuit of the wrong dreams (Kahn 143). Amory and his friends joke about the ghosts that haunt their lives, laughing that they can be easily dispatched with a stick (123). Traces of the past pervade This Side of Paradise, providing the novel with its most suggestive symbol, the ghost. Thus, the romantic [Amory] "hopes against hope that things won't last (123). Both intended to realize their own conceptions of self (Pelzer 42). Beatrice O'Hara Blaine shapes the romantic background of her son's life. Clearly, Amory's efforts to attach his dreams to an ideal embodied in a woman are misguided. Kenneth Eble also believed everything after their relationship is over is more of an appendix to the whole book (48). He is someone who shares her own disdain for ideas and a dreamy view of life. He wants to experience again the thrill of desire and he says it plain and clear: ". the last time evil crept close to Amory under the mask of beauty, the last weird mystery that held him with wild fascination and pounded his soul to flakes" (123).
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Acceptance Essays
