"The romantic figures in Fitzgerald's works have a remarkable feature, that is, they are diligent in self-reflection." Emory in Paradise on Earth is an out-and-out romantic, but he can constantly reflect on himself while experiencing various setbacks, and finally get rid of the fantasy of aristocratic and romantic egoism step by step and get to know himself.
At the beginning of the novel, Emory's family background is explained. Emory's mother Beatrice is the daughter of a wealthy American, and his father Stephen Bryan got rich by inheriting the inheritance of two brothers who are famous as brokers in Chicago. This newly formed family is a typical middle-class family. However, Beatrice still maintains the aristocratic style in this new family. When Emory left for St. Regis Middle School, he was said to have prepared "six sets of summer underwear, six sets of winter underwear, a sweater or T-shirt, a sweatshirt, a coat, winter clothes and so on". It is this extravagance and waste, coupled with poor investment and financial management, that has led to a sharp decline in their family's economic situation.
Beatrice received an elite education when she was young. Although this kind of education is at the "end of the elite era", she still wants to instill this kind of education in her son Emory. Therefore, unlike other rich children, Emory received a very special education from his mother, such as eating breakfast in bed and reading in the bathtub, while his mother was complacent about his "femininity". Influenced by his mother, Emory became more and more like his mother when he was 13 years old. Under the careful cultivation of his mother, he established a sense of superiority far superior to others. Although this sense of superiority suffered a heavy blow in Minneapolis's two-year life, Emory formed his original philosophy, the principle of his life, that is, a kind of aristocratic egoism:
"Emory calls himself a lucky young man, with great plasticity, good and bad. He doesn't consider himself a "strong-willed" person, but relies on his own talent (accepting things quite quickly) and outstanding intelligence (reading widely). He is proud that he can climb other peaks besides being a technical or scientific genius. "
However, in St. Regis Middle School, although Amauri thought he was a talented and intelligent person, people around him thought he was arrogant and generally hated him. It was not until he made a splash in the football match in the second school year and fully enjoyed his heroic and tenacious heroism that Emory regained his former complacency, had his first reflection and began to subtly hide the influence exerted by his mother. Emory looks completely different from himself, but the essence has not changed.
Emory thinks that although the students of Princeton University are lazy, they are all beautiful and aristocratic, so they have always had a heart for Princeton University. After entering Princeton University, Emory made up his mind to get ahead. After some efforts, he joined the editorial board of Princeton People, participated in the music tour of the Triangle Club, joined the "Country House" club, and was elected as the preparatory committee member of the second-grade dance. At this time, he not only made many excellent new friends, but also fell in love with Isabella. However, the lazy nature of aristocratic egoism made him encounter a series of setbacks after reaching the high point of vanity and the peak of egoism in his youth. Frustrated love with Isabella just stopped a romantic history in time for him, and it was even more fatal for Emory to be forced to leave the editorial department of Princeton Men because of the failure of the make-up exam and lose the opportunity to enter the leadership of the senior student union. For a time, Amauri fell into negative decadence, until the demon's "pale face twisted by some heavy evil" awakened Amauri. In the last two years of college life, Emory also felt his growth and maturity from his old friend Bourne Holiday. "He became more cynical, sneered at everything that stood in his way, and thought that people could not be perfect." This second reflection is actually the problem of aristocratic egoism before. Subsequently, the war continued, so that American teenager Emory finally got out of his illusion and left the campus for overseas training camps.
In the second part, after experiencing the disillusionment of love with rosalind, the experiment of regrouping, self-mockery and arrogant sacrifice, Emory finally gave birth to a brand-new self from Father Darcy's funeral: "He found what he always wanted now, in the past and in the future-not the admiration he was afraid of, not the love he once persuaded himself to get, but the person who made himself necessary and indispensable". This third reflection made Emory feel a strong desire to give people a sense of security, so he turned to socialist belief. Just like the pilgrim in fable, Emory set off for Princeton University with a complex mood of disillusionment and rebirth. The towers, spires and bells of Princeton University made him realize as if he were a new student, "The spirit of the past is incubating a new generation of elite young people from a chaotic and unpurified world. They still romantically draw nourishment from the mistakes and forgotten dreams left by late politicians and poets. Here is a new generation, shouting old slogans, learning old beliefs and indulging in long dreams day and night. Finally, I will inevitably come out and walk into that dirty, gray whirlpool to pursue love and pride. " At this point, Emory experienced the fourth and most important reflection, and finally came out of the illusion of "romantic egoist", opened his arms to the glittering sky and shouted out the Socratic wisdom "I know myself".
Therefore, it can be said that Paradise on Earth is a masterpiece recognized by the world and a true portrayal of the "lost generation". In the novel, Fitzgerald vividly shows readers the serious moral confusion and spiritual crisis in the early stage of the formation of the "lost generation" in America. It profoundly reveals the spiritual emptiness and moral depravity of American young people during World War I, truly records the pleasure-seeking and bohemian lifestyle of the "lost generation" of young people in the United States, faithfully reflects the youthful turmoil in American society before the advent of the frivolous jazz age, and truly describes all kinds of puzzles and setbacks encountered by this generation on the road of life. Through a brand-new perspective and reasonable layout, Fitzgerald vividly shows the fantasy of young people's fanatical pursuit of the "American dream" and the theme of doomed failure in a perfect artistic form, which has produced a strong shock in people's hearts. Based on the theme of seeking self-worth and his psychological contradiction, Fitzgerald depicts an elegant and disillusioned hero, the young artist Amoli Bryan, suggesting that the hero hides a romantic sadness under the elegant charm, profoundly revealing his confusion and melancholy, and showing the common experience of American "lost generation" writers by describing the hero's personal bumpy experience. The description of the novel is very vivid, the writing is quite fresh and lively, and the people and things are vividly described, which has aroused strong resonance in the hearts of American readers. Amoli Bryan, the hero of the novel, is also a true portrayal of the author to a great extent.
In Paradise on Earth, Fitzgerald describes in detail the process of "fantasy-pursuit-disillusionment" of Emory, and "vividly shows the fantasy of young people's fanatical pursuit of the' American Dream' and the theme of doomed failure". Emory's experience is also an artistic representation of Fitzgerald's youth life to some extent. Fitzgerald "shows the young generation's wild and cathartic pursuit of the' American Dream' with a sense of understanding and even participation". Young emory desperately wanted to gain fame and status by virtue of his talent and intelligence, and later found that what he pursued, even love, was not worthy of praise, which fully demonstrated the nothingness of the "American dream." Just as Emory's strong desire for success is also manifested in Fitzgerald's later protagonists Gatsby and Dick Defoe. At the same time, Fitzgerald's portrayal of rosalind also leads to the theme of a series of later works, "... she is not completely spoiled. She is full of energy, she has a desire to grow and learn, she has unlimited confidence in endless romantic love, her courage and essential honesty-these things are not lost. However, they are doomed to disappear. It is precisely because his characters have gradually lost these qualities that they feel sympathy and pity for their failure. Besides, in Paradise on Earth, Fitzgerald not only "felt" the tremor of the times with his unique acumen and wisdom, but also recorded the social outlook and living atmosphere of that particular era with vivid words, and accurately captured the moral decay under the colorful and intoxicating appearance of prosperity in the 1920s, and expressed Emory's pursuit and disillusionment with gorgeous rhetoric. This kind of true description based on the observation of life and times has gradually become a lasting creative theme in his later novels.