Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in This Side of Paradise, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Youth, Innocence, and Coming of Age
Friendship and Masculinity
War, Modern Life, and Generations
Money and Class
Love and Sexuality
Summary
Analysis
Amory arrives at Princeton. He feels uncomfortable walking around campus and worried what other students think of his clothes. In his building, a large run-down mansion that houses other students, Amory meets Kerry Holiday, who went to Andover. Amory eats dinner with Kerry and his brother, Burne Holiday, and they discuss what activities and clubs they plan to join. They see a movie and get sundaes, then Amory sits outside of his house and watches a procession of acapella singers walk past.
From the start of his first year at Princeton, Amory already seems to feel a premature nostalgia for his time at college. He has romantic narratives of his experiences and is eager to make friends and become part of the social scene.
Themes
Amory loves Princeton immediately, yet he feels somewhat unhappy. He notices that the social system is dominated by groups from the New England prep schools, and that fellow students seem to be drawn to the “big man.” As the only boy from St. Regis, Amory resents these social barriers. An injury prevents Amory from playing football. He misses the reputation and admiration he cultivated at St. Regis, and he wonders what activities to join in order to improve his social status. He decides he wants to join the Daily Princetonian, the school newspaper, and the Triangle Club, a theater group.
Like at St. Regis, Amory feels out of place immediately at Princeton: while “the fundamental”—the traits that made him initially unpopular at St. Regis—remains, the “conventional” influence on his personality has also not fully allowed him to fit in. He notices that there is a social divide that reflects class divides and favors upperclassmen from the most elite prep schools. He is trying to mold himself to the ideal of “the slicker” in order to be successful.
Themes
Literary Devices
Amory and Kerry wonder why they have not been accepted among Princeton’s elite yet. Amory is afraid that he is socially “middle class” and wishes he were effortlessly at the top of the social hierarchy. Kerry sarcastically suggests that Amory work his way up by publishing poems in the literary magazine like Thomas Park D’Invilliers, whom they both deem pretentious. Kerry wants to benefit from Burne’s reputation, but Amory insists that they should make names for themselves in the social scene.
Amory’s ideas about class are somewhat conflicting: while he was previously resentful about arbitrary class hierarchies, here he seems to justify them and feels jealous of those who are born on top. It becomes clear that it is class, and not education or cultural awareness, that decides the hierarchy: Tom is seen as pretentious for being interested in literature.
Themes
Amory and Kerry play pranks on their housemates, and Amory gives Kerry advice on how to appeal to girls. At Joe’s, a dining hall, Amory by chance sits down across from Thomas Park D’Invilliers, and they strike up a conversation about literature. Amory is pleased to meet another person who shares his interest, but he worries that the group of boys from St. Paul’s, including Dick Humbird, will think of him as a literary snob like Tom. Amory and Tom become good friends. They discuss literature and read and write poetry together. Amory tries to teach Tom about the social system and make him “conventional.” In the spring, Amory enjoys Princeton’s Gothic campus and vows that in his next year he will work harder. In the summer after his freshman year, World War I begins.
Amory is beginning to enjoy his youth at Princeton and make close friends. Amory’s developing friendship with Tom illustrates Amory’s conflicting desires regarding social conformity: on the one hand, he is drawn to Tom, who is idiosyncratic, unusual, and naturally indifferent to social conventions. On the other hand, Amory wants to make Tom “conventional” so that their friendship appears more socially advantageous for each of them. Amory’s fascination with Dick Humbird is also introduced here, foreshadowing the further conflict between Amory’s aspirations to upper class status and his aspirations to unconventional literary success.
Themes
Literary Devices
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Back at Princeton for his sophomore year, Amory joins the Triangle Club and the Daily Princetonian. He prepares with the Triangle Club a musical comedy, which they perform on tour over Christmas break. On the Triangle trip, they visit eight cities across the country, and Amory attends a number of “petting part[ies],” where young men and women dance and kiss, even though it is considered improper by their parents. The young women Amory meets fall in love many times and kiss many men, and Amory questions the nature of these new moral codes that permit young men and women to kiss and flirt in a manner previously forbidden.
Amory joins two of the most established, institutional clubs at Princeton. (Both the Triangle Club and the Daily Princetonian exist in real life: the former is a student theater group, and the latter is the student newspaper.) Amory’s experience at the “petting parties” demonstrates the relative relaxation and liberation of social norms regarding sexuality in this period: before the turn of the century, such parties would have been strictly prohibited in elite society because it would have been considered inappropriate for young men and women who were not married to be alone together.
Themes
Now 18, Amory returns to Minneapolis after the Triangle trip in order to meet Isabelle Borgé, a cousin of his friend and former crush Sally Weatherby. Sally has told Amory and Isabelle about each other. Amory has heard that Isabelle is beautiful and has been kissed. Isabelle is excited to meet Amory, who seems romantic and desirable to her. At a party at the Minnehaha Club, Amory competes with Frog Parker for Isabelle’s attention. Amory and Isabelle instantly connect, and they play a game of flirtation at the party. Toward the end of the evening, they escape to a private room upstairs. They discuss Princeton and the boys she knows from her home in Baltimore. Amory and Isabelle admit their affection for each other and are about to kiss when Frog barges in. Amory has to leave for the train back to Princeton.
Amory’s romance with Isabelle establishes many of the tropes that reoccur in his subsequent romances throughout the book: Isabelle is wealthy (wealthier than Amory), charming, flirtatious, and somewhat haughty. In these ways, she is quite similar to Amory, and it is perhaps their similarity that attracts them to each other. Both are quick to admit their infatuation, which leads to the immediate romantic intensity of their affair. Isabelle’s character is based on a real relationship F. Scott Fitzgerald had with Ginevra King, a Chicago socialite.
Themes
Literary Devices
Amory becomes popular and well-respected because he is on the staff of The Princetonian. All the younger students try to get bids to eating clubs (selective social clubs where students gather to eat). He and Alec Connage join Cottage, and he is very happy during this period in college. Alec wakes Amory up one morning to skip class and drive to the beach with him, Dick, Kerry, and Jesse Ferrenby. Amory joins them despite being worried about cutting class. Amory thinks about poetry on their drive, and is thrilled to see the ocean, which he has not seen in eight years.
Eating clubs are also institutions in Princeton’s social scene that exist in real life, and they dominate much of the school’s social hierarchy. Therefore, gaining entry to an elite eating club is a sign of Amory’s success in rising to the top of the social hierarchy. Amory’s trip to the beach with his friends reflects the rebellious attitude of their generation and their willingness to defy authority.
Themes
The boys eat lunch at a hotel on the boardwalk and refuse to pay the bill. They then walk down the boardwalk, where Kerry meets a girl whom the others consider ugly—still, she joins their party. Amory notices that though Dick is quiet, he seems to be the center of attention. Amory admires Dick and thinks he is a model aristocrat, always seeming effortless and proper. Alec reveals to Amory that rather than coming from an illustrious family, Dick’s father came from poverty, made a fortune in Tacoma, and only moved to New York 10 years ago. This fact disappoints Amory. The boys run out of money, but they pretend to collect charity for orphans, which they use to buy alcohol. They sneak into the movies and later sleep on the boardwalk. The next day they take group photos of themselves and then return to Princeton.
This trip to Atlantic City symbolizes the freedom and carefree joy of Amory’s sophomore year at Princeton, which he will later recognize as the high point of his youth and the happiest time of his life. In addition, Amory’s fascination with Dick reflects his youthful fascination with the upper class and his idealization of money and status. However, it is significant that Dick’s money does not come from a long lineage of wealthy relatives but rather from his father who originally came from a lower-class background. This kind of new wealth is seen as less respectable and aristocratic; it is quintessentially American because it is possible to amass wealth quickly in the United States, whereas in Europe wealth is inherited from respectable families. This lowers Amory’s estimation of Dick’s background.
Themes
Literary Devices
Back at college, Amory neglects his schoolwork and spends much of his time going to parties. Amory and his friends are climbing the social ladder: Amory is elected to the prom committee, and Alec believes that Tom could be on the senior council, even though a year ago he was considered pretentious and unpopular. Amory maintains a correspondence with Isabelle, to whom he writes long letters. He tells Alec that he is tired of college but that he does not want to get married yet. Tom tells Amory that he is tired of the snobbishness and status obsession of Princeton, even though he has adapted to it—he does not want to return to Princeton the following year. Amory tells Tom that he (Amory) will never be a poet.
This period of Amory’s time in college is when he has most fully succeeded in becoming “conventional,” or becoming a “slicker.” Tom, too, has become conventional, which was an even greater transformation than Amory’s. Amory’s conventionality is why he believes he will never become a poet: he believes he is no longer unusual or highbrow enough to become a real artist.
Themes
Near the end of the semester, Amory, Alec, and others are driving back from New York when they find Dick Humbird dead on the road after a car accident. Fred Sloane and Jesse Ferrenby, who were driving with Dick, are both injured and explain that Dick was drunk and had crashed their car. Amory is upset by the grotesque tragedy and considers it “unaristocratic.” The next day, Isabelle and her mother visit him at Princeton for the prom. Amory and Isabelle drive to her family’s summer house on Long Island. Amory is enjoying life greatly, and he realizes that he is at the prime of his youth. He and Isabelle kiss for the first time.
Dick’s death weighs on Amory for the rest of the novel. This loss reveals to Amory that wealth and status cannot protect one from violence and brutality. This moment is one of the first incidents that makes Amory doubt the virtue of money and class. Later, Dick will appear to Amory in a moment of fear and vulnerability, reminding him of the arbitrariness of this tragedy. Despite Dick’s death, Amory is still able to enjoy the rest of his sophomore year and his time with Isabelle, showing some of Amory’s callousness and self-absorption.
Themes
