A Study Of This Side Of Paradise From The Perspective Of The Initiation Story

Francis Scott Fitzgerald is one of the most brilliant novelists in the 20 th century.As the “Poet Laureate of the Jazz Age”,he published five novels and several short stories.As his first novel,This Side of Paradise has attracted wide attention and received high praise by readers at home and abroad with its autobiographic factors and lyrical writing skills,in particular,the protagonist Amory as the representative of the youth in that era.This novel mainly describes the initiation process of Amory who was spoiled by his mother from innocence to maturity.From preparatory school to university,he runs into a serious of problems.After going through the First World War and the frustration of love,he rethought his life and found his value,which gives us a vivid picture of the Lost Generation in America and the sorts of frustration in the initiation journey.So,Fitzgerald is known as the spokesman of “Jazz Age”.This thesis intends to analyze This Side of Paradise from the perspective of initiation story and illustrates how the protagonist grows in terms of plot,characters and structure.This thesis is composed of three parts.The first part is the introduction,which sketches out the writer Fitzgerald,This Side of Paradise and the research background,purpose and significance.The second part is the main body,which is further divided into four chapters.The first chapter illustrates the development and general features of an initiation story,including plot,characters and the structure,which gives the judgment of This Side of Paradise as an initiation story.The second part depicts how This Side of Paradise embodies the important features of an initiation story from the perspective of plot.The third part discusses how This Side of Paradise embodies the typical features of an initiation story from the perspective of characters,mainly including the elders,lovers and companions,who exert profound influence on the protagonist's growth.The fourth part analyzes the novel from the perspective of structure,including open-ending,third person point of view and autobiographic factors,which correspond with the features of initiation story.The conclusion part summarizes the studies of This Side of Paradise in the previous chapters as a typical traditional American initiation story.Meanwhile,as an adolescent,the initiation process of the protagonist Amory has a great significance to all the adolescents who are stuck in confusions.The studies of the initiation story will enrich the study of This Side of Paradise as well as enlarge the research scope of initiation story.