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Definition of Simile
A simile is a figure of speech that directly compares two unlike things. To make the comparison, similes most often use the connecting words "like" or "as," but can also... read full definition
A simile is a figure of speech that directly compares two unlike things. To make the comparison, similes most often use the connecting words "like... read full definition
A simile is a figure of speech that directly compares two unlike things. To make the comparison, similes most often... read full definition
Book 1, Chapter 1: Amory, Son of Beatrice
Explanation and Analysis—Love of the Performance:
Fitzgerald excoriates the upper class for their intensely manipulative social mores throughout This Side of Paradise. One motif that relates to Fitzgerald's exploration of money and class is that of theatrical performance and opera. In Book 1, Chapter 1, Fitzgerald uses a metaphor to explain Amory's social struggles at St. Regis:
With a dread of being alone he attached a few friends, but since they were not among the elite of the school he used them simply as mirrors of himself, audiences before which he might do that posing absolutely essential to him. He was unbearably lonely, desperately unhappy.
Related Themes:
Book 1, Chapter 2: Spires and Gargoyles
Explanation and Analysis—Love of the Performance:
Fitzgerald excoriates the upper class for their intensely manipulative social mores throughout This Side of Paradise. One motif that relates to Fitzgerald's exploration of money and class is that of theatrical performance and opera. In Book 1, Chapter 1, Fitzgerald uses a metaphor to explain Amory's social struggles at St. Regis:
Unlock with LitCharts A+With a dread of being alone he attached a few friends, but since they were not among the elite of the school he used them simply as mirrors of himself, audiences before which he might do that posing absolutely essential to him. He was unbearably lonely, desperately unhappy.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Amory's Faucet:
In Book 1, Chapter 2, Amory comes into his own as a Princetonian and as a young man. Describing his protagonist's particular—and peculiar—charm, Fitzgerald uses a simile to explain Amory's distinctive mode of attraction:
Unlock with LitCharts A+He lacked somehow that intense animal magnetism that so often accompanies beauty in men or women; his personality seemed rather a mental thing, and it was not in his power to turn it on and off like a water faucet. But people never forgot his face.
Related Themes:
Book 1, Chapter 3: The Egotist Considers
Explanation and Analysis—Mind on Fire:
In Book 1, Chapter 3, Amory has a startling lapse in his cool, calculating demeanor as his sanity appears to waver on a night out with his friends in New York. In the sequence that follows, Fitzgerald uses a host of literary devices—including imagery, metaphor, and simile—to detail Amory's hallucinogenic feeling of horror:
Unlock with LitCharts A+There was a minute while temptation crept over him like a warm wind, and his imagination turned to fire, and he took the glass from Phoebe's hand.
Related Themes:
