Historical Context
World War I
With tensions running very high between the major European powers, the 1914 assassination of Archduke Ferdinand of...
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Ideas for Group Discussions
Many readers have found in this youthful performance by Fitzgerald a sense of the author's testing his talent, trying to determine which...
(The entire section is 354 words.)
Literary Style
Dramatic, Poetic, and Epistolary Forms
This Side of Paradise is largely told by an omniscient or all-knowing, third person...
(The entire section is 441 words.)
Bibliography and Further Reading
Sources
Broun, Heywood, “Paradise and Princeton,” in F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Critical Reception, edited by Jackson...
(The entire section is 239 words.)
Bibliography
(Masterpieces of American Literature)
Bloom, Harold, ed. F. Scott Fitzgerald. New York: Chelsea House, 1985. A short but important collection of critical essays, this book provides an introductory overview of Fitzgerald scholarship, plus readings from a variety of perspectives on his fiction.
Bruccoli, Matthew J., ed. New Essays on “The Great Gatsby.” Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1985. This short but important collection includes an introductory overview of scholarship, plus interpretive essays on Fitzgerald’s best-known novel.
Bruccoli, Matthew J. Some Sort of Epic Grandeur. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich,...
(The entire section is 258 words.)
Compare and Contrast
1920: Many young soldiers have come home to the United States from a devastating war abroad to a mood of increasing isolationism and a...
(The entire section is 216 words.)
Topics for Further Study
This Side of Paradise includes a number of poems by Amory and other characters, such as Eleanor. Reread these poems and discuss their...
(The entire section is 345 words.)
Media Adaptations
A book-on-tape of This Side of Paradise is available unabridged from Bookcassette Sales, 1997.
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What Do I Read Next?
Fitzgerald’s most famous novel, The Great Gatsby (1925), is the story of the rise and fall of Jay Gatsby together with the boredom,...
(The entire section is 179 words.)