Question

ANALYZE CRAFT AND STRUCTURE: —from This Side of Paradise, F. Scott Fitzgerald
In his novel This Side of Paradise, F. Scott Fitzgerald tells the story of Amory Blaine, son of Beatrice Blaine, born O’Hara. Read the passage from the novel. Then, answer the question(s).

(1) . . . All in all Beatrice O’Hara absorbed the sort of education that will be quite impossible ever again; a tutelage measured by the number of things and people one could be contemptuous of and charming about; a culture rich in all arts and traditions, barren of all ideas, in the last of those days when the great gardener clipped the inferior roses to produce one perfect bud. . . .

(2) . . . When Amory was five he was already a delightful companion for her. He was an auburn-haired boy, with great, handsome eyes which he would grow up to in time, a facile imaginative mind and a taste for fancy dress. From his fourth to his tenth year he did the country with his mother in her father’s private car, from Coronado, where his mother became so bored that she had a nervous breakdown in a fashionable hotel, down to Mexico City, where she took a mild, almost epidemic consumption. This trouble pleased her, and later she made use of it as an intrinsic part of her atmosphere—especially after several astounding bracers.

(3) So, while more or less fortunate little rich boys were defying governesses on the beach at Newport, or being spanked or tutored or read to from ―Do and Dare,‖ or ―Frank on the Mississippi,‖ Amory was biting acquiescent bell-boys in the Waldorf, outgrowing a natural repugnance to chamber music and symphonies, and deriving a highly specialized education from his mother.

(4) ―Amory.‖

(5) ―Yes, Beatrice.‖ (Such a quaint name for his mother; she encouraged it.)

(6) ―Dear, don’t think of getting out of bed yet. I’ve always suspected that early rising in early life makes one nervous. Clothilde is having your breakfast brought up.‖

(7) ―All right.‖

(8) ―I am feeling very old to-day, Amory,‖ she would sigh, her face a rare cameo of pathos, her voice exquisitely modulated, her hands as facile as Bernhardt’s.* ―My nerves are on edge— on edge. We must leave this terrifying place to-morrow and go searching for sunshine.‖

(9) Amory’s penetrating green eyes would look out through tangled hair at his mother. Even at this age he had no illusions about her. . . .

____________

*Bernhardt’s a reference to Sarah Bernhardt (1844–1923), a famous actress of the day.

Two-Part Question
Part A
Multiple Choice Question
The following question has two parts. Answer Part A first, and then Part B.
Part A Which answer choice correctly explains the type of characterization used in the following quotation from the passage?
"Dear, don’t think of getting out of bed yet. I’ve always suspected that early rising in early life makes one nervous." (paragraph 6)
A.
It is an example of direct characterization, because the narrator is telling us something about a character.
B.
It is an example of direct characterization, because a character is telling us something about the way she feels and thinks.
C.
It is an example of indirect characterization, because the narrator is describing a character.
D.
It is an example of indirect characterization, because a character’s speech is telling us something about her.
Part B
Multiple Choice Question
Part B Choose the answer that best describes the character of Beatrice, as revealed in the quotation from the passage in Part A.
A.
She is a down-to-earth, somewhat simple woman.
B.
She is a self-indulgent, eccentric woman.
C.
She is a passionate, kind-hearted woman.
D.
She is a cold, unhappy, cruel woman.

Answer 1

Part A: D — It’s indirect characterization, because a character’s speech is revealing something about her.

Part B: B — The line shows Beatrice’s self-indulgent, eccentric manner (pampering Amory and using a fanciful, theatrical explanation to avoid early rising).