In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s debut, the novel This Side of Paradise, Princeton student Burne Holiday declares his love of a pronounced proboscis. “The large mouth and broad chin and rather big nose undoubtedly make the superior face,” he insists. To him, it “always means brainy and well-educated.”
Perhaps it was Fitzgerald’s own (largish and pointy) nose that inspired him to give his characters big beaks. Jordan Baker’s “proud” one, for instance, is held high with grace and superiority.
