Amory Blaines Mirrors in Fitzgeralds This Side of...

Amory Blaines Mirrors in Fitzgeralds This Side of Paradise In F. Scott Fitzgeralds novel This Side of Paradise, Amory Blaine searches for his identity by mirroring people he admires. However, these mirrors actually block him from finding his true self. He falls in love with women whose personalities intrigue him; he mimics the actions of men he looks up to. Eleanor Savage and Burne Holiday serve as prime examples of this. Until Amory loses his pivotal mirror, Monsignor Darcy, he searches for his soul in all the wrong places. When Monsignor Darcy dies, Amory has the spiritual epiphany he needs to reach his paradise - the knowledge of who Amory Blaine truly is. Amory appears to be a rather vacuous choice for a†¦show more content†¦Eleanor and Amory hate each other after this realization, but the hatred has a good quality in that Amory understands that he had loved himself in Eleanor, so now what he hated was only a mirror (218). Choosing to emulate Eleanors dementia proved to be a bad decision along the course of Amorys search for himself. He sees his own defunct image in this mirror, and it frightens him. It causes him to temporarily loathe himself as well as Eleanor, but it also teaches him that he needs to become an individual. While this idea exists in Amorys mind, it does not strike him full force until the death of Monsignor Darcy. Monsignor Darcy seems to be an odd choice for a role model for Amory since Amory continually refers to himself as a paganist (209). However, it is not surprising that Amory idolizes the Monsignor not only because his pagan talk is superficial, but also because Beatrice held the Monsignor in the highest regard. Amory does not mean he believes in paganism when he refers to himself as paganist; he does not know himself well enough to know whether or not he believes in God. Rather he means he experiences what could be called a paganism of the soul: he has no soul, therefore nothing exists for him to, figuratively, worship, or technically, with which to worship. Amory looks up to Monsignor Darcy because he epitomizes what Amory wishes he could be; passively heShow MoreRelatedThe Roaring Twenties By F. Scott Fitzgerald1263 Words   |  6 Pagesmedia and events surrounding this time period greatly impacted the carefree, extravagant lifestyle. This era was one of the most dramatic and energetic times in American history. To many, the symbols of the roaring Twenties were F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife, due to their tales of the young and the wealthy (Hanson 96). The Roaring Twenties influenced many literary works, throughout the 1920s such as F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and This Side of Paradise. At the start of the 1920s, prohibitionRead MoreResearch Paper F Scott Fitzgerald2343 Words   |  10 PagesThe Unsatisfied American Dream As Florence King once said, â€Å"People are so busy dreaming the American Dream, fantasizing about what they could be or have a right to be, that theyre all asleep at the switch. This quote symbolizes the simple fact that the American Dream is impossible for someone to ever attain because people are to busy dreaming about what others have, that they fail to recognize what they themselves already have attained. The American author F. Scott Fitzgerald has had an unprecedented