This Side of Paradise (SparkNotes Literature Guide)

By SparkNotes

This Side of Paradise (SparkNotes Literature Guide) by F. Scott Fitzgerald
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• Language: English
• Publisher: SparkNotes
• Release date: Aug 12, 2014
• ISBN: 9781411477919

Book preview

Cover of SparkNotes Guide to This Side of Paradise by SparkNotes Editors

This Side of Paradise

F. Scott Fitzgerald

© 2003, 2007 by Spark Publishing

This Spark Publishing edition 2014 by SparkNotes LLC, an Affiliate of Barnes & Noble

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (including electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.

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ISBN-13: 978-1-4114-7791-9

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Contents

Context

Summary

Characters

Book I, Chapter 1: Amory, Son of Beatrice

Book I, Chapter 2: Spires and Gargoyles

Book I, Chapter 3: The Egotist Considers

Book I, Chapter 4: Narcissus Off Duty

Interlude, May 1917 - February 1919

Book II, Chapter 1: The Debutante

Book II, Chapter 2: Experiments in Convalescence

Book II, Chapter 3: Young Irony

Book II, Chapter 4: The Supercilious Sacrifice

Book II, Chapter 5: The Egotist Becomes a Personage

Overall Analysis

Study Questions

Review & Resources

Context

This Side of Paradise is a work of a young author, and possesses some fundamental flaws, both structural and thematic. But it is a truly important work, both in the life of its author, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and for the course of twentieth-century American history and fiction. The novel contains a number of autobiographical elements and made an enormous impact on the later life of its author--who may never have written anything else if not for its success. The book was successful not only because of Fitzgerald's lyrical and graceful writing, but more importantly as a telling portrait of a new era in American history.

Fitzgerald was born Francis Scott Key in 1897 (named for the Star Spangled Banner lyricist to whom he was distantly related), and attended an Eastern boarding school, where he did not excel in athletics or academics, but did exhibit an early penchant for writing and producing plays. He was admitted to Princeton University, where he maintained his academic mediocrity but indulged and expanded his love of literature through his friendships and his prominent role in the Triangle Club, a Princeton theater group. Without earning his degree, Fitzgerald enlisted in the army in 1917 and, afraid that he would die in the war, rapidly dashed off a novel entitled The Romantic Egotist which was praised, but rejected, by publishers.

Fitzgerald was stationed in Alabama, where he met the wild Southern belle Zelda Sayre, with whom he instantly fell in love. He revised and submitted The Romantic Egotist again, but again met with rejection. The war ended without Scott having to go overseas. His romance continued, but Zelda refused to marry into poverty, insisting that Scott display an ability to earn money first. After a failed career in advertising in New York, Zelda broke off the engagement, and Fitzgerald returned to Minnesota to complete the novel. Adding to and revising The Romantic Egotist, Fitzgerald completed This Side of Paradise. Upon its acceptance by a publisher in 1919, Zelda agreed to marry him.

This novel achieved enormous success and established Fitzgerald as the chronicler of the new post-war youth of America--of flappers, alcohol, and the Jazz Age. Zelda