What makes Amory Blaine character American in This Side of Paradise - Essay Example

What makes Amory Blaine character uniquely American in the novel "This Side of Paradise" In the novel, “This Side of Paradise” authored by F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, Amory Blain is portrayed as a protagonist who searches his identity by looking at those people that he admires. However, these people block him from finding his true self. He appears to be more vacuous and relies mostly on his breathtaking handsomeness and his wealth in order to get well with life. The novel begins by describing the family background of Amor’s, from his childhood to adulthood and perhaps the early upbringing contributed a lot to his behaviour. Amor comes from a wealthy family and his mother Beatrice, was wealthy and pretty woman from Geneva lake Wisconsin, she is well educated and charming, refined woman who got married to Stephen Blaine out of weariness. The novel goes ahead and describes the love that Beatrice gave to Amory, and she loved her son deeply both as a mother and a friend. At home Beatrice, along with home tutors passes on Amor much of elegance of her education as they traversed and travelled the country together enjoying all sorts of the high elegant societies. The family of Amory here depicts a true American family that is ready to give the best for their siblings and significant others. Moreover the choice of name, Amory that is unusual strongly brings the word love to the mind and such a name firmly places the work in the American tradition of a love narrative (Bruccoli & Matthew, P.9-25). Amory is taken to study in high-class schools, and this makes him get sophisticated education. The sophisticated education sets him asunder from his peers because, at thirteen, he was behaving like a grown man already. This can be evident on how he attends a party of girls in his class and arrives in a fashionable way and occasionally spoiling the party. He does very many things that a boy at his age could not do, like playing romantic charms and asking Myra to kiss him. Further sketches of the young Amory follows by showing him quite often falling in love and reading voraciously. Amory goes to his mother and tells her that he wants to go to a boarding school; this made him enrol at New England where he meets Monsignor Darcy with whom they instantly form a strong bond of relationship. The opening sketches of Amory indicate that he lives an unconventional life that is separate from most people in their society. They are wealthy but unique and distinct from other wealthy people who are living around them; this can be eluded from the way Amory’s life was shaped. His life was shaped by his lovely and unique mother from a very tender age to such an extent that he is unique and different from those other age-mates and people around him. Amory struggles academically and socially at St. Regis, and most of other students thinks that he is conceited even the teachers considers him as indiscipline even though quite bright. He later improves his behaviour and joins football team where he becomes a star, at one point he travels with a friend to New York to watch the show and fall in love with the leading actress. It shows a typical American teenager who has got a passion for girls, nevertheless Amory’s difference that both infuriates and attracted young girls. It is witnessed in the encounter of wealth and charms that he has for women and his disastrous impact in the young man. Amory is one unique American teenager in the world of passion, romance and love. He always wants a perfectly romantic moments but once he achieves it he definitely ruins the love, citing an example is his utterance disregard the feelings of Myra after their kiss and it offers a sight of his egotism and inability to fulfilment in any romance. Unlike the conventional American youth who would always wish to have a romantic relationship once achieved, Amory is the exact opposite who ruins them and offers no remorse at his damages (Fitzgerald, Matthew & Bruccoli et.al, P. 76). In the campus, Amory was concerned with social politics and he devises a method of distinguishing between the big man and the slickers in campus. These words were coined by Amory to describe two different groups of boys in the campus, with the aim of recruiting some of his friends to his camp while intimidating others. He described the big man as somehow romantic portrait boy who cared very little for his appearance or standings but participated in any activities out of a sense of duty. He further described him as a boy who had problematic time in college without his friends from prep school. The slicker was described as those who were socially conscious and succeeded at college in a more worldly way. It’s ironic to note that Amory places himself among the big men category yet he does not fit much in the descriptions of which he coined. It was a move to lure more of his friend to give little attention to book work and get involved in other r co-curriculum activities. It appears that Amory has not identified his true self and perhaps still wallowing to identify himself. Amory has got a desire to adapt himself to establish good social systems and the obsessive analysis of such systems continue at Princeton fully. After being sidelined from football Amory seeks to achieve success from other ways, he makes friendship with Tom, who does not notice nor were care for politics yet these Amory likes. Their literary friendship and the ideas that they shared expands Amory’s mind but at the same time, Tom bearing was more conventional, and his change inspires Amory with regret at what he could have done had Amory not given into the social pressure. The ability of Amory to get something good from others and become better for it, while people around him experience lots of regrets, it offers proper insight into Amory’s adaptability and egotism. It is much seen when Amory embraces Isabelle and his shirt hurts Isabelle’s neck and leaves a mark. A small argument then erupts between them an Isabelle accuses Amory of not being sensitive, but rather being egocentric. He later realises that they do not love each other and Amory quickly quite the affair It is imperative to note that the bright Amory concentrated much in the social life to an extent that he gave little attention to his academics. This is noted when Amory fails in his course semester exam, prepares to study but goes ahead not to read for the makeup exam and deliberately fails. He is conformed too much in doing everything for social life success and trusts that failing in the exam will make him recover himself. Amory conception of himself as a personage rather than a personality clearly demonstrates him as an individual who can gain much success and then lose them indefinitely without affecting his self-image. He, therefore, later becomes more of a person with less reputation, this is a unique behaviour because normally people want to gain reputation and maintain the successes that they have achieved in life. It, therefore, put Amory in a unique position as a character in the novel (Prigozy & Ruth, P.45). In normal circumstances, an individual will feel sad when they lose their significant others, but Amory shows no remorse in the death of his father. In fact, he attends the burial without showing any emotion; he only gets interested in the diminishing wealth of the family that is due to poor investments. The novel ends when Amory is penniless; this is a twist from a rich family with the flamboyant mother who made every provision to his dear son; nevertheless Amory continues to concentrate in his study works and social life perhaps to identify his life fully. He realises that he hates poverty, and he goes further to start spreading the news of socialism perhaps hoping that he might land himself back on the revolution. The lack of money made him have a deep dynamic thought of who he was, and this led him to seek guidance deep down him. That was a character that displayed how Amor was coming to learn and live with the reality of life. Things were not as usual, and it was time for Amor to think more and understand his life in a conventional way. Eventually, as the novel comes to an end, Amory, discarded money, love and convention but rather concentrated in deep self-actualization. He later comes to realize that he was selfish and egocentric. At the end of the novel he claims that he finally knows himself, “but this is all." The book portrays Amor as uniquely American with such behaviours that he portrayed in an unconventional manner. His life that started from a flamboyant family to end in poverty may provide the picture unto why Amory fought for his self-actualization and identification. In conclusion, “This Side of Paradise” provides a good insight on understanding the reason some people behaves in a unique way rather than in a conventional way. Amory is a victim who by chance struggled throughout his life and at last identifies himself. He comes out as a uniquely American in this interestingly outstanding must-read novel. Work cited Bruccoli, Matthew J. A Collation of F. Scott Fitzgeralds This Side of Paradise. Charlottesville, Va.: University of Virginia, 2007. Print. Fitzgerald, F S, Matthew J. Bruccoli, and Alan Margolies. F. Scott Fitzgerald Manuscripts. New York: Garland, 2010. Print. Prigozy, Ruth. The Cambridge Companion to F. Scott Fitzgerald. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Print. Read More