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American Literature
The development of the major ideas and attitudes expressed in Modern American literatures since 1900 can start with the realist school of literature, which focused on representing in naturalistic terms and concepts the life of the world around. Thus, Theodore Dreiser wrote Sister Carrie about a bumpkin country girl who moves to the big city and becomes a mistress. Stehpen Crane also portrayed the street life and Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle about what it was like to work in the meat packing plants at the time and how difficult it was for immigrant life. The ideas here were focused on revealing real American life -- not in broad comedy like a Mark Twain novel -- but in serious terms.
F. Scott Fitzgerald reflected the concept of "wasted youth" and the obsession with riches and power that was all so meaningless in the greater scheme of things in works like The Great Gatsby. Other writers by the 1920s were examining life from deeper perspectives as well -- penetrating through the realism genre to attempt to decipher the deeper mystery at the heart of life. Thus, T. S. Eliot after expatriating to England, wrote some of the best modern poetry in The Waste Land and The Four Quartets...
Eliot converted to Anglicanism and this belief was reflected in his later works after his poetry laid bare the need for some spiritual redemption/salvation. Other writers turned to drama and the stage: Eugene O'Neill became America's first great playwright by producing realistic works about American life -- including Long Day's Journey into Night, which was a biographical sketch of his own family life as a young man in Connecticut.
The New Woman is reflected in these poems as being one born of resentment for the role she is expected to play as "wife" and "homemaker." She is literally boiling with rage in "What That Smell in the Kitchen?" by Piercy -- yes, it is the dinner that she is burning on purpose to get back at the man she believes is oppressing her -- but it is also herself who is burning with so much hatred and disgust that the stench is quite actually coming from her too. This poem presents the New Woman as a woman who is out to end her state in life one…
References
Piercy, M. (2009). What's That Smell in the Kitchen? Poetry: A Pocket Anthology.
NY: Pearson.
Rich, A. (n..d.). Living in Sin. Retrieved from https://www.naic.edu/~gibson/poems/rich1.html
America: A nation of paradoxes America is a nation of paradoxes. On one hand, it is a nation that has symbolized freedom to many immigrants, as poignantly illustrated in Emma Lazarus' poem "The New Colossus," a poem included on the famed Statue of Liberty that greeted so many refugees as they strove to escape from Europe and avoid intolerable situations. The Lazarus poem proclaims the dawning a new America, free of
Black Elk utilizes his visions to create understanding of nearly all things he is later exposed to. The discussion in closing will further illuminate his utilization of vision, to ask for help for his people in a time of crisis. To discuss the vertical model of artistic communication it is difficult to narrow the filed to just one example, as Native American literature, and to a lesser degree film have
In search for honest leadership in the church she wrote "Character is the first qualification," without that, the minister is a menace." She stated that ministers should have a clean and unselfish purpose, be innovative, dedicated to the issues of the community, sincere in their mission and not lazy. In effort to stay true to her vision for black women, Burroughs introduced "Women's Day" to the National Baptist Convention in
American writers from both the antebellum South and the North commented on the great differences between the white people in the two regions (Ibid; Samuda). Note though, the table data below regarding the percentage of males who completed high school by race, 1940-1980, which will provide data for further discussion regarding utilization of testing to stratify recruits: Table 1 -- Males 18-21 Who Completed High School By Percentile Race 1940 1950 1960 1970 1970 White 40 49 56 68 78 Black 11 18 33 49 60 (Source: Binkin, p.94) How is
Southern California Frederick Jackson Turner is perhaps most well-known for his famous essay, "The Significance of the Frontier on American History." In this essay, Turner defines and supports his thesis that the history of the American West is the history of America. This theory directly correlates to the concept of Manifest Destiny put forth by Monroe in which the push westward and the subsequent development, it was believed, was man's
This gave everyone motivation to let themselves be heard and say whatever it was that was on their mind. This was what American life at the time was all about, and it was through American Literature that they were able to do so. Transcendentalism brought upon a literary era that encouraged the succeeding eras of literature to define American Literature. Realism was a literary period in American history that came