Brett Nelson
Professor Jeffrey Morgan
LIT221
November 16, 2014
This Side of Paradise: Literary Elements and the Path to Self-discovery
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1920 novel “This Side of Paradise,” was supremely controversial for its time. The Modernism ideals presented throughout the piece, such as those of socialism and feminism, demonstrated a great deal about the time period and the rapid societal changes. Amidst the novels modernistic values however, lies the true message of the book, self-discovery. Self-discovery is a very American quality, as American’s have been trying to discovery themselves since first landing on the shores. The melting pot that is the United States has always struggled with self-identity to some extent, in part, because
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Amory begins as an egotistical, vein young boy who eventually develops into a man who ultimately achieves some portion of the self-knowledge he has spent his life seeking. This knowledge is of course only gained at the cost of losing his wealth and friends. The beginning of the novel paints a rather unflattering image of Amory, as his personality at the time is derived mostly from his interaction with his quite eccentric mother Beatrice Blaine. Her sense of entitlement, snobbish attitude and ego are all qualities that are inflicted upon and absorbed by Amory. He was raised without restrictions, morals guidance or social skills, which led him to follow in his mother’s footsteps. This lack of rules caused Amory to become demanding, entitled and snobbish, with a complete lack of disregard for social niceties and common courtesy. “Amory was biting acquiescent bell-boys in the Waldorf, outgrowing a natural repugnance to chamber music and symphonies, and deriving a highly specialized education from his mother,” (Fitzgerald, 14). Unfortunately, even after leaving his mother’s side to attend school in Minneapolis, these less-than-admirable qualities still inflicted Armory. His snobbishness goes as far as to render him without friends except for perhaps the many young girls he has managed to charm, if only temporarily. “Armory wondered how people
Francis Scott Fitzgerald, also known under his writer’s name, F. Scott Fitzgerald, is revered as a famous American novelist for his writing masterpieces in the 1920’s and 1930’s. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote about his extravagant lifestyle in America that his wife, Zelda, their friends, and him lived during that era. In fact, a lot of his novels and essays were based off of real-life situations with exaggerated plots and twists. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novels were the readers looking glass into his tragic life that resulted in sad endings in his books, and ultimately his own life. F. Scott Fitzgerald lived in a nice neighborhood, but growing up, he wasn’t privileged.
However, Amory spins into a deep depression after Rosalind refuses to marry him due to his current financial state, and instead goes off to be with another guy whom she soon marries instead. The breakup with Rosalind nearly killed Amory, causing him to quit his job and become a huge alcoholic for the next year or so. He soon takes a trip to Maryland to visit an uncle of his, and has a short romance with a girl named Eleanor. Although he has some feeling for her, he knows no girl will make him feel as he did for Rosalind. After returning to New York, Amory soon learns about Rosalind’s plan to marry some high-roller, causing Amory to fall back into his spiral of self-destruction. Without a source of money, nothing comes easy to anyone, and a determined Amory attempts to dig deeper for the meaning of life without love. He no longer sees women as a source of motivation, and he tries to discover who he really is without the help of Rosalind. He says that “It is not life that’s complicated, it’s the struggle to guide and control life,” which shows his urge to find a sense of direction in his life, as well as contributes to him learning who he really is (256). Once he gives up conformity, love and wealth, Amory finally is able to see his selfishness and enters an extremely deep discovery, which allows him to begin understanding himself as a person. At the end, he declares, “I know myself, but that is all-,” which would indicate that Amory knows nothing but himself and who he is, and that knowledge is far more valuable than anything else he has ever wanted in his entire life
For Sarty’s entire life he and his family had been living in poverty. His father, who had always been jealous of “the good life”, takes his frustrations out against the post-Civil war aristocracy by burning the barns of wealthy farmers. As most fathers do, Ab makes the attempt to pass his traits and beliefs on to his son, whom does not necessarily agree nor fully understand his father’s standpoint. The following passage is an example of how Sarty is taught that both legal justice and wealth is the enemy of his family: He could not see the table where the Justice sat and before which his father and his father’s enemy (our enemy he thought in that despair; ourn! Mine and hisn both! He’s my father!) stood, but he could not hear them, the two of them that is, because his father had said no word yet.
Alyss meets an orphan named Quigly Gaffer, who is, in Alyss’s eye, “the nicest in the band of homeless orphans and runaways of which he was a part” (Beddor 101). He gave Alyss and t...
Mizener, Arthur, ed. F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1963.
“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” Clover, the main character in the story The Other Side by Jacqueline Woodson, Clover grows up, disobeys her mom, and makes a new friend. I think the theme of the story The Other Side is courageous because Annie and Clover are both kind to each other, they accept each other, and they are both brave.
According to the narrator, Casy’s appearance is not too flattering. A few images that are put into the reader’s head
The Great Gatsby set in the glistening and glittering world of wealth and glamour of 1920s Jazz Age in America. However, the story of the poor boy who tried to fulfill the American Dream of living a richer and fuller life ends in Gatsby’s demise. One of the reasons for the tragedy is the corrupting influence of greed on Gatsby. As soon as Gatsby starts to see money as means of transforming his fantasy of winning Daisy’s love into reality, his dream turns into illusion. However, other characters of the novel are also affected by greed. On closer inspection it turns out that almost every individual in the novel is covetous of something other people have. In this view, the meaning of greed in the novel may be varied The greed is universally seen as desire for material things. However, in recent studies the definition of “greed” has come to include sexual greed and greed as idolatry, understood as fascination with a deity or a certain image (Rosner 2007, p. 7). The extended definition of greed provides valuable framework for research on The Great Gatsby because the objects of characters’ desires can be material, such as money and possessions, or less tangible, such as love or relationship.
Certain authors, including F. Scott Fitzgerald, wanted to reflect the horrors that the world had experienced not a decade ago. In 1914, one of the most destructive and pointless wars in history plagued the world: World War I. This war destroyed a whole generation of young men, something one would refer to as the “Lost Generation”. Modernism was a time that allowed the barbarity of the war to simmer down and eventually, disappear altogether. One such author that thrived in this period was F. Scott Fitzgerald, a young poet and author who considered himself the best of his time. One could say that this self-absorption was what fueled his drive to be the most famous modernist the world had seen. As The New Yorker staff writer Susan Orlean mentions in her literary summary of Fitzgerald’s works, “I didn’t know till fifteen that there was anyone in the world except me, and it cost me plenty” (Orlean xi). One of the key factors that influenced and shaped Fitzgerald’s writing was World War I, with one of his most famous novels, This Side Of Paradise, being published directly after the war in 1920. Yet his most famous writing was the book, The Great Gatsby, a novel about striving to achieve the American dream, except finding out when succeeding that this dream was not a desire at all. Fitzgerald himself lived a life full of partying and traveling the world. According to the Norton Anthology of American Literature, “In the 1920’s and 1930’s F. Scott Fitzgerald was equally equally famous as a writer and as a celebrity author whose lifestyle seemed to symbolize the two decades; in the 1920’s he stood for all-night partying, drinking, and the pursuit of pleasure while in the 1930’s he stood for the gloomy aftermath of excess” (Baym 2124). A fur...
Racism is a constant of American society. No other society may be as racist. Yet, what other society has made such valiant efforts to rid itself of this evil? Fitzgerald, who hated discussing such political questions, may ultimately be judged by not only this novel, but by the fascinating personal decisions he made in his own life. His conversion to Islam (only a few short weeks before his death at in the attack on Pearl Harbor) may or may not have been the key to reinvigorating his writing, but, as Boris Becker reminds us: “He was not a racist. He was a man who was determined, in the best way he knew, to bring all races closer.”
Kristiana Kahakauwila's, a local Hawaiian brought up in California, perspective view of Hawaii is not the one we visually outwardly recognize and perceive in a tourist brochure, but paints a vivid picture of a modern, cutting edge Hawai`i. The short story "This Is Paradise", the ironically titled debut story accumulation, by Kahakauwila, tell the story of a group narrative that enacts a bit like a Greek ensemble of voices: the local working class women of Waikiki, who proximately observe and verbally meddle and confront a careless, puerile youthful tourist, named Susan, who is attracted to the more foreboding side of the city's nightlife. In this designation story, Susan is quieted into innocent separated by her paradisiacal circumventions, lulled into poor, unsafe naïve culls. Kahakauwila closes her story on a dismal somber note, where the chorus, do to little too late of what would have been ideal, to the impairment of all. Stereotype, territorial, acceptance, and unity, delineates and depicts the circadian lives of Hawaiian native locals, and the relationships with the neglectful, candid tourists, all while investigating and exploring the pressure tension intrinsically in racial and class division, and the wide hole in recognition between the battle between the traditional Hawaiian societal culture and the cutting edge modern world infringing on its shores.
Bewley, Marius. "Scott Fitzgerald's Criticism of America." The Sewanee Review 62.2 (1954): 223-46. The Johns Hopkins University Press. Web. 28 Apr. 2014.
His only realization of himself was that “his own weaknesses [were] the result of circumstances and environment” (Fitzgerald 242). He let his strongest emotions, love and hate, act as his conscience for life. Amory knew he could never be content until he uncovered the missing piece in his life. Amory ponders the world around him and his cynical attitude toward the social class, he was ironically born into. He sees the world through a completely new perspective influencing the rest of his life. At this point, Amory finds himself in a long car ride with a few men from the upper class discussing the largest world issues. Readers can examine the changes Amory has undergone through his tone as he speaks to the two men. No longer is Amory unsure of himself or his opinions, building great self-confidence as his conceit slowly
In writing this book, commonly refered to as the “Great American Novel”, F. Scott Fitzgerald achieved in showing future generations what the early twenties were like, and the kinds of people that lived then. He did this in a beautifully written novel with in-depth characters, a captivating plot, and a wonderful sense of the time period.
In 1897, consequently to the collapse of Edwards business, the family moved to New York, in order for Edward to take up a job as a salesman for Proctor and Gamble. Be that as it may, their moved was brief after Edward was let go from his employment in 1908, inciting a move back the St. Paul where the Fitzgerald’s lived off the McQuillan family fortune, (Fitzgerald, Bruccoli and Baughman, 1995). For the next 14 years, Scott invested the larger part of his time at boarding school, at Princeton University, in the army, and in New York City (Ibid, 1995). Fitzgerald’s writing career began to take off in 1920 after the publication of his first novel, This Side of Paradise (Bruccoli and Smith, 1981). The novel received glowing reviews (Ibid, 1981) and secured Fitzgerald’s place as one of the country’s most promising young