Symbolism In This Side Of Paradise

This Side of Paradise Analysis Amory Blaine is both eccentric and idealistic, but the world is harsh and unaccepting to his brilliant young mind and ideals. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, This Side of Paradise, explores the harsh realities of growing up and the changes time and the fragile twentieth-century society begins to have on the turbulent and hopelessly unconventional Amory Blaine. Throughout the novel, themes similar to those described in Thomas C. Foster’s How to Read Literature Like a Professor became evident. This Side of Paradise includes a quest story arc, the symbolism of seasons, Political themes, and a Christ figure as described in Foster’s book. In This Side of Paradise, Amory Blaine’s life is a quest. Foster states that “the quest consists of five things: (a) a quester, (b) a place to go, (c) a stated reason to go there, (d) challenges and trials en route, and (e) a real reason to go there” (3). In Fitzgerald’s novel, Amory is the quester. Instead of a concrete place to go, however, he believes that he must gain to fortune and fame as he desperately wants to be recognized as the brilliant young man he knows he is by the rest of the world. His main challenge in life is the conventionality of society suffocating his own unconventionality. This is made especially evident when he tells Beatrice about his life during their time apart declaring, “I adapted myself to the bourgeoisie. I became conventional” (Fitzgerald 23). His real reason for his quest, as Foster states, is self-knowledge (3). This is confirmed in the final sentence in This Side of Paradise, “I know myself,” he cried, “but that is all!” (Fitzgerald 261). Although Amory seems dejected and unsure by the end of the novel, whether he knows it or not, self-knowledge is the most challenging discovery one could ever make. The onset and change of different seasons has a special place in the literary world. In This Side of Paradise, Amory tells his new love interest, Eleanor, that he never falls in love in August or September. This seems to foretell the nearly inevitable end of their relationship. Later, when the weather becomes colder, Eleanor and Amory decide that they no longer harbor any love for …show more content…
This proves true in This Side of Paradise when Amory begins to discuss his political views with a gentleman when on making his way to Princeton. He tells the gentleman that this is his first argument for socialism, stating that he is “sick of a system where the richest man gets the most beautiful girl if he wants her, where the artist without an income has to sell his talents to a button manufacturer.” (Fitzgerald, 256). As Foster states, most works include political commentary, but most are more subtle than the commentary used in This Side of Paradise. In a shocking turn of events, Amory also proves to be a Christ figure. Throughout most of the book, Amory is quite arrogant. However, Amory finds himself a changed man after his devastating heartbreak with Rosalind. No longer the conceited Amory of the past, he decides to frame himself for a crime he did not commit (Fitzgerald, 231). Christ figures, as noted by Foster, are self-sacrificing (129). Although not perfect, Amory willingly intervenes and takes the blame for a crime he did not commit, successfully preserving his friend’s image. As such, Amory qualifies as a Christ