【文章內(nèi)容簡(jiǎn)介】 People’s Lostness 13 A. The Contradiction Between Ideal and Reality 13 B. Ups and Downs on the Campus 14 C. Failure in Love 16 Chapter IV. Looking for a Way out 19 A. Amory Blaine’s Thinking 19 Conclusion 21 Notes 22 Bibliography 23 vIntroduction After the First World War, the social value of America was gradually changing during the 1920s. People abandoned the traditional Puritan ethic, while they began to pursue material pleasure. Francis Scott Fitzgerald is just the author of that time. This Side of Paradise is his first novel. The publication of the novel made Fitzgerald a spokesman for the Lost Generationand a prophet of the Jazz Age. As the spokesman, Fitzgerald wrote down his strong feelings about the Jazz Age by his own passion and trenchant pen. The hero of This Side of Paradise is the reflection of his life and his creative prototype is right from his life experience. Therefore, his life journey explains his novels and in turn his novels give proper explanatory notes for his mystery life. It is like his own words, I see something that seems to be unbelievable, untrue and impossible being reality. Francis Scott Fitzgerald was born in a middle class family and his father was a businessman, so he could afford to go to a privative school and later he entered Princeton University to receive regular education. In his early time, Fitzgerald showed his talent for writing. At the age of thirteen, he published his first works. At school, he was fond of writing for the journal of the school, which made him gain considerable fame at the time. However, his love for writing and his illness made him neglect his studies. When he returned to school, he found that he had lost his passion. Although his family was no longer prosperity and he tasted hardships of life too early, he still hoped that one day he could gain certain fame by himself. Fitzgerald wanted to get rid of difficulties of studies and to change his fate though the war, so he joined the army. During that time, he became to write his first novel and he got off with a young lady Zelda Sayre. The love for Zelda Sayre strengthened his thirst for success. However, before he went to the battlefield, the war had ended. Therefore, Fitzgerald could not realize his dreams by war. His manuscript was returned and Zelda Sayre left him, which was a huge attack. He came back to his hometown and continued writing his novel. He put his affection and experience into his novel, so his novel was the reflection of his life. Like Fitzgerald, Amory Blaine aspired to bee a famous person, but their dreams were different from the social value. As a result, it was inevitable that their belief would be disillusioned. This Side of Paradise depicts that a group of American young people only pursue material pleasure and are at a loss about life in the process of growing up. The novel describes the end of one age and the ing of another new age, revealing American young people’s unrestrained life and their restless mood, which reflects young people’s mental development process. The hero Amory Blaine is born in a rich family. In terms of his character, he is sentimental and full of youth’s fantasy. That is to say, he wants to marry the most beautiful girl and to stand on the top of the society to be a great man. When he is admitted to Princeton University, he undergoes romantic love but the result is terrible. In consequence, he loses faith in love and studies. As the ing of the First World War, he joins the army. During the war period, his mother is dead, his family declines and his girlfriend leaves him. After a series of attacks, Amory’s mind has changed a lot. He bees negative and does not want to grow up. In addition, he shows his scorn for traditional social criteria. Their love is crazy, however, it is lack of real emotion. Moreover, their behaviour conflicts with social reality. Hence, their longing for heaven is like a dream and then there is only a loss after the dream has broken. To a certain extent, the novel reflects the author’s life experience in Princeton University. The thesis not only expresses the lostness of the hero and the writer, but also shows social reasons of young people’s loss and their miserable fate. Lostness has been fully embodied in Fitzgerald’s novels. The contradiction between ideal and reality, failure in love and hesitation to struggle or escape, all of these manifest loss of American youth. The article attempts to make people deeply understand Fitzgerald’s theme by analyzing his first novel This Side of Paradise.Chapter I. Knock the Door to Paradise For Francis Scott Fitzgerald, the publication of This Side of Paradise in 1920 is more important than his masterpiece The Great Gatsby five years later. When Fitzgerald was a teenager, he aspired to bee the greatest writer ever. However, it was beyond his imagination that his first step towards the literary world was so difficult. In spite of the fact that the press made a positive ment on his first novel, his manuscript was returned many times. If it was not objective factor that he had to stake his love on the novel, This Side of Paradise would lose its position. In fact, it turned out to be a success. The novel not only saved the love of Fitzgerald and Zelda Sayre in time, meanwhile it also opened the door to paradise of the literature for him.A. Production of This Side of Paradise Before Fitzgerald left Princeton to join the army in 1917, he gave his manuscript to his literary teacher Professor Gauss. It consists of autobiographical stories and some poems, describing his life in Princeton University. It is the embryonic form of This Side of Paradise. Because of his fear of death in the battlefield, he hoped that his novel could e out on Professor Gauss’s remendation, but it failed. Thereupon, Fitzgerald began to rewrite his novel day and night during the period of military service. He thought he only had three