The story of Amory Blaine's adolescence and undergraduate days at Princeton, This Side of Paradise captures the essence of an American generation struggling to define itself in the aftermath of World War I and the destruction of 'the old order'. Amory, intent in rebelling against his staid, Midwestern upbringing, longs to acquire the patina of Eastern sophistication. In his quest for sexual and intellectual enlightenment, he progresses with abandon through a series of relationships with mentors, room-mates, old flames and new lovers. At the end of his undergraduate years, suffering 'self-reproach and loneliness and disillusion,' Amory is cast out of paradise into the frightening labyrinth of the real world. More than a story of a young man's initiation into life, this is a seminal portrait of the 'lost generation' closely identified with Fitzgerald's work (and life) and embodies Fitzgerald's sense of himself as a writer.