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Book 2, Chapter 3: Young Irony
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in This Side of Paradise, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Youth, Innocence, and Coming of Age
Friendship and Masculinity
War, Modern Life, and Generations
Money and Class
Love and Sexuality
Summary
Analysis
Amory meets Alec, who is driving with two women, in Atlantic City. Amory is preoccupied by the deaths of their friends, Jesse, Kerry, and Dick, as well as by his pain about Rosalind, yet he agrees to spend the night in a hotel with Alec and the two women. Later that night, detectives knock on their door looking for an unmarried man and woman sleeping together, which is a crime. Amory reflects on the arrogance and impersonality of sacrifice, remembering a boy in college who took the blame for cheating on an exam and later killed himself because of the consequences. Amory decides to take the blame to protect Alec’s reputation and family, though Amory was asleep while Alec was with one of the girls, Jill Wayne (it is implied that they were having sex). Amory believes that Alec will hate him for this sacrifice.
This trip to Atlantic City echoes and contrasts with Amory’s trip in college spent cutting class and wandering joyfully with his friends, many of whom are now dead. This scene highlights all that Amory has lost in only a few years, and how quickly his innocence has been stripped away. It is perhaps the case that Amory’s sacrifice for Alec is selfless, but his decision to take the blame also seems to play into Amory’s ego, allowing him to see himself in a positive light—and this, in turn, will most likely complicate his friendship with Alec.
Themes
Amory tells Alec to lie in the bathroom and pretend to be drunk. The detectives escort Amory and Jill out of the hotel. The hotel decides not to prosecute them but instead to publish a line in a newspaper saying that Amory was in a hotel with a woman who was not his wife. Jill asks Amory if Alec is more important than him, and Amory replies that that “remains to be seen.” In the same newspaper that publishes the news of Amory’s misconduct, Amory sees an announcement that Rosalind is engaged to Dawson Ryder. He considers her as good as dead. The next day, Amory receives a letter from Mr. Barton telling him that his family’s money has run out. Soon after, he receives news that Monsignor Darcy has died.
Amory’s punishment reveals the degree to which even in modern society, sexuality is still rigidly regulated and punished. Furthermore, the sense of all that Amory has lost is intensified when, adding insult to injury, learns about both Rosalind, Monsignor Darcy, and his family’s fortunes. It seems as if Amory has hit a sort of rock bottom, where it seems, both to him and the reader, as if he has nothing else to lose.
Themes
