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
In January of Amory’s senior year, a large number of the junior class decides to resign from their clubs, encouraged by Burne Holiday, in order to reform the social system. Burne comes to try to convince Tom to resign from his clubs, and he stays to talk with Tom and Amory. Amory finds Burne intense, earnest and compelling. Amory is drawn to Burne, and they become close friends. Amory learns that Burne is a socialist and a pacifist, and that he is interested in literature. Lying awake at night, Amory remembers a couple of pranks that Burne had orchestrated. Amory is impressed by his simultaneous seriousness and humor.
While Amory has become less conventional during his junior and senior years of college, the rejection of conventionality has also spread throughout much of the student body at Princeton. It is Burne’s charisma that inspires so many students to reject the institutions that dominate the social scene, and it is also Burne’s charisma that draws Amory to him. In Burne, Amory finds something close to a new infatuation that replaces his infatuation with Dick.
Themes
Literary Devices
Burne increasingly retreats from the Princeton social scene. He spends time reading, writing, and attending graduate classes and is often seen walking across campus deep in thought. Amory is overcome with joy seeing him lost in thought. Amory admits to Tom that Burne is the first person whom Amory believes to be smarter than himself. Tom explains that people think Burne is odd, and Amory tells Tom that he has become conventional. Amory notices that it is the most intellectual men who have the most disdain for Burne. Burne confronts Jesse over an editorial in The Princetonian that Jesse wrote, in which Jesse inadvertently insults Jesus.
Burne is not at all conventional, and his idiosyncrasy inspires Amory to further embrace his own “bizarre streak.” Burne’s friendship seems to be a good influence on Amory, prompting Amory to immerse himself again in intellectual and literary activities. While Amory previously said he would never be a poet, he now embraces his poetic nature and becomes excited about learning again.
Themes
Amory begins to enjoy college again and feels youthful and energetic. Alec tells Amory that he is getting a reputation for being eccentric, like Burne, because Amory brings strange characters to dinner at Cottage Club. Alec agrees to accept Amory in private as long as he is the same Amory as before. Amory brings Burne to visit Monsignor Darcy, and they get along well. Afterwards, Darcy, in a letter, asks Amory to visit a poor, widowed cousin of Amory’s in Philadelphia, Clara Page, as a favor.
It is Amory’s rejection of conventionality that allows him to enjoy college again: this rejection of upper and middle-class social norms further foreshadows Amory’s ultimate rejection of the pursuit of money and status: he is beginning to realize, even in his youth, that such goals are not fulfilling to him.
Themes
When Amory visits Clara, she is not the image of poverty that he expected. Amory is enamored with her and falls in love with her. He repeatedly visits her on weekends through the spring. Clara understands Amory and tells him that while he is vain, he is truly humble at heart. Amory tells Clara that he loves her and wants to marry her. Clara tells him that she has never been in love and will never marry again. Amory admits that although Clara is the only woman he has ever known and will ever know, he can understand why she would prefer another man.
Amory’s love for Clara is distinct from his other romantic relationships. Clara is the least similar to him, and the only woman he considers to be morally superior to him. There is a sense that, as the war is impending, it will cut off the hope of any kind of life with Clara. Further, it seems that Clara’s moral goodness is what makes her so unattainable for Amory: she is too good to marry someone like her, and going to war will destroy any possibility of him becoming good enough.
Themes
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The war finally reaches the United States, and Princeton men begin to join in the army. Amory goes to Washington to enlist, while Burne refuses because he is a pacifist. A week later, Burne sells all his possessions and leaves on a bicycle for his home in Pennsylvania. Amory becomes angry at the previous generation, whom he believes encouraged German aggression. During a lecture on Victorian poetry, Amory composes a poem blaming the war on the Victorians, which he hands to his professor. On their last night on campus, Tom and Amory feel the presence of ghosts, whom they think are the youth of generations past. Tom and Amory say a tearful goodbye.
The war entirely changes the course of Amory’s life and that of his entire generation. The war suddenly brings the generation’s youth to an abrupt end, forcing them to enter the violent, traumatic modern world. There is a sense already, even before they have left, that this will be a significant source of generational consciousness, as Amory already blames the war on the previous generation and their values. Amory’s male friendships will never be the same after he leaves Princeton, as they were significantly shaped by their all-male social environment. Amory and Tom recognize this implicitly, making their goodbye very sad.
Themes
Literary Devices
