Amory Blaine

1909 Words8 Pages
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s first novel, This Side of Paradise, was published and set in the United States prior to and after World War I in the 1920’s jazz age. The life of Amory Blaine, the protagonist, is chronicled as he attends boarding school, studies at Princeton University, and becomes consumed by the materialistic tendencies of the twentieth century. Blaine falls in and out of love with a variety of women as he attempts to define his role in society. Fitzgerald depicts the culture and downfalls of the 1920’s youth through the actions and values of Amory Blaine and the many people with whom he forms relationships. The 1920s were marked by the desire to achieve a state of financial wealth. Blaine’s actions and speech, even as a young boy,…show more content…
After failing his classes and not completing any form of education at Princeton, Blaine concludes that he "possess[es] the most valuable experience, [...] for in spite of going to college [he's] managed to pick up a good education" outside in the world and in the valuable lessons he has learned (Fitzgerald 257). Fitzgerald uses Blaine's opinion on the lack of necessity for higher education to criticize and yet properly portray the lack of ambition, for anything other than material items, in the 1920’s youth. Princeton provides an opportunity for Blaine to work hard and secure his financial future but the women and the dazzling excitement of the 20s causes him to gravitate away from this…show more content…
The mediocre intellects, Plato’s second class, use the remnants of romantic chivalry diluted with Victorian sentiment — and we who consider ourselves the intellectuals cover it by pretending that it’s another side of us. has nothing to do with our shining brains; we pretend that the fact that we realize it is really absolving us from being a prey to it. But the truth is that sex is right in the middle of our purest abstractions, so close that it obscures vision (251). Blaine’s experiences in the war displayed the disillusioned world in which he “comes fully to grips with the idea that torments him and abuses his idealism” (Kahn). Blaine believes that he has never lost sight of who he is and what his ideals are. However, he now realizes that he has pretended and conformed to society’s notions of right and wrong for so long that he has not listened to what his own conscience is telling him. Blaine also notices that Rosalind was taken over by these social norms as well when she broke up with her one true love simply because he was not making enough money at the
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