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 (

. . .

View the whole essay, without interruption

Each time Amory meets a woman, the relationship never work, symbolic of an unreachable youth ideal. The effect of this is to suggest that the war separates Amory’s life into two distinctive halves (123). Kenneth Eble also believed everything after their relationship is over is more of an appendix to the whole book (48).

This Side of Paradise is a bildungrosman, or novel of development or apprenticeship (123). For example, the fact that he was to get no more money from the rail companies. Soon Amory realizes it was embodied in the image of Dick Humbird, who was killed in an automobile accident, a sad victim of his own excesses (132). He believed that by an effort of will, it is possible for a person to master the horrors of dark as he has. Separating the books is an interlude made up of two letters describing Amory’s experience in World War I.

Amory’s disillusionment following his break up did not deter him from pursuit of his ideal. In other words, having her is not what he imagined. His image of himself may be vague and incomplete, but its mere existence is sufficient to harness his energy and drive him toward his dream. Amory’s repeated failures to win the women he loves, not only chart his course to maturity, but also help shape his life. Also, it was a lazy and good-looking place, rather like himself. Amory may be alone at the end of the novel, seemingly lost in the maze of his own disillusionment, but when he emerges from its tangled pathways, thinking his way through his own confusion, he will find again in his fundamental self the will to dream on.

Approximate Word count = 2353
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)

Simply subscribe to view this paper, and 100,000 others.