This Side of Paradise

by

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Kerry Holiday Character Analysis

Kerry Holiday is Amory’s first friend at Princeton; they live in the same house during Amory’s freshman year. Kerry is also Burne’s older brother. Kerry and Amory bond over their initial frustrations with the Princeton social scene, feeling like they are not accepted because they are middle class. They become close and have a rowdy, lively friendship. Kerry is the first of Amory’s classmates to leave school to join the war, where he later dies.

Kerry Holiday Quotes in This Side of Paradise

The This Side of Paradise quotes below are all either spoken by Kerry Holiday or refer to Kerry Holiday. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Youth, Innocence, and Coming of Age Theme Icon
).
Book 1, Chapter 2: Spires and Gargoyles Quotes

“Oh, it isn’t that I mind the glittering caste system,” admitted Amory. “I like having a bunch of hot cats on top, but gosh, Kerry, I’ve got to be one of them.”

“But just now, Amory, you’re only a sweaty bourgeois.”

Amory lay for a moment without speaking.

“I won’t be—long,” he said finally. “But I hate to get anywhere by working for it. I’ll show the marks, don’t you know.”

Related Characters: Amory Blaine (speaker), Kerry Holiday (speaker)
Related Symbols: The Slicker
Page Number: 42
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 1, Chapter 3: The Egotist Considers Quotes

“A personality is what you thought you were, what this Kerry and Sloane you tell me of evidently are. Personality is a physical matter almost entirely; it lowers the people it acts on—I’ve seen it vanish in a long sickness. But while a personality is active, it overrides ‘the next thing.’ Now a personage, on the other hand, gathers. He is never thought of apart from what he’s done. He’s a bar on which a thousand things have been hung—glittering things sometimes, as ours are; but he uses those things with a cold mentality back of them.”

Related Characters: Monsignor Darcy (speaker), Amory Blaine, Kerry Holiday, Fred Sloane
Page Number: 95-96
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire This Side of Paradise LitChart as a printable PDF.
This Side of Paradise PDF

Kerry Holiday Character Timeline in This Side of Paradise

The timeline below shows where the character Kerry Holiday appears in This Side of Paradise. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Book 1, Chapter 2: Spires and Gargoyles
Friendship and Masculinity Theme Icon
...his clothes. In his building, a large run-down mansion that houses other students, Amory meets Kerry Holiday, who went to Andover. Amory eats dinner with Kerry and his brother, Burne Holiday,... (full context)
Friendship and Masculinity Theme Icon
Money and Class Theme Icon
Amory and Kerry wonder why they have not been accepted among Princeton’s elite yet. Amory is afraid that... (full context)
Friendship and Masculinity Theme Icon
Money and Class Theme Icon
Amory and Kerry play pranks on their housemates, and Amory gives Kerry advice on how to appeal to... (full context)
Friendship and Masculinity Theme Icon
War, Modern Life, and Generations Theme Icon
Money and Class Theme Icon
...Amory up one morning to skip class and drive to the beach with him, Dick, Kerry, and Jesse Ferrenby. Amory joins them despite being worried about cutting class. Amory thinks about... (full context)
Youth, Innocence, and Coming of Age Theme Icon
Friendship and Masculinity Theme Icon
Money and Class Theme Icon
...the boardwalk and refuse to pay the bill. They then walk down the boardwalk, where Kerry meets a girl whom the others consider ugly—still, she joins their party. Amory notices that... (full context)
Book 1, Chapter 3: The Egotist Considers
Youth, Innocence, and Coming of Age Theme Icon
Friendship and Masculinity Theme Icon
War, Modern Life, and Generations Theme Icon
...visits Monsignor Darcy at Christmas and admits that he wants to leave college, and that Kerry has asked him to join the army with him. Monsignor Darcy discourages him, saying that... (full context)
Interlude: May, 1917 – February, 1919
Friendship and Masculinity Theme Icon
War, Modern Life, and Generations Theme Icon
Money and Class Theme Icon
...of her life, and her investments in railroads are losing money. Amory also reveals that Kerry and Jesse have died in the war, and that Burne has gone missing. (full context)
Book 2, Chapter 4: The Supercilious Sacrifice
Youth, Innocence, and Coming of Age Theme Icon
Friendship and Masculinity Theme Icon
Love and Sexuality Theme Icon
...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... (full context)