How does one attempt self-discovery? Often, in many novels we read of self-discovery through a traumatic event or in this case a loss of sorts. In a quest to discover their unique self, we follow young Amory Blaine, from F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise, from his childhood years right through his times at Princeton. He is a wealthy young man, who is brought up in a high-class society. On a similar quest as Amory, we follow Henry David Thoreau in Walden, he does not live a life of a high-class society, rather a much more simple existence. He leaves all that he owns behind to start anew on Walden lacking the convention of society, love and an abundance of money. However, unlike Thoreau's plan for a simple life, Amory begins his quest for himself with convention, love and money because he believes it is these things that will truly find him happiness.
             Walden is a narrative of Thoreau's time being alone on Walden Pond with no more than the necessities of life: food, clothing and shelter. He leaves all that he owns behind because he knows that without these things the focus on the self is much more clear and defined. He says, regarding simplicity: "the wisest have ever lived a more simple and meager life than the poor, they are poorer in outward riches, yet all so rich inward" (Thoreau 12). Even toward the beginning of his narrative, he knows that this is true. As Thoreau continues to live on Walden, he further reassures himself that the human race focuses too much on materialistic things, something that he wants to change by sharing his experience in this novel.
             If only Amory Blaine could read Walden, he would not have to go through such heartache and confusion. He was born into a wealthy family; his sophisticated education separates him from his peers: "she [his mother] fed him sections of the 'Fetes Galantes,' before he was ten, he could talk glibly" (Fitzgerald 13)...