Nineteenth Century Sensational Fiction: Dime Novels
In the late nineteenth century, a new form of sensational fiction emerged. Called dime novels because of the five to twenty-five cent sale price, these pocket-sized books told short stories of American frontier adventure. Often formulaic, these stories centered on macho heroes and damsels in distress, never venturing far beyond plotlines of capture and rescue, pursuit and escape. Violence and lewdness became the impetus for the popularity of this form which, because of its cheapness, was often passed along to friends and neighbors upon completion. The serial nature of these stories, which featured a set number of identifiable characters such as Deadwood Dick and Calamity Jane, kept readers coming back for more.
Not surprisingly, many young readers, boys especially, were drawn to the sense of adventure and rebellion in dime novels. Gratuitous gore and debauchery were also points of attraction. These unsavory qualities became a major concern of parents who felt that their sons were being negatively influenced, perhaps into a life of crime and banditry. Still, the mass production of dime novels made it easy for boys to obtain them even without parental permission. Almost every newsstand or corner bookstore had copies of the latest bloody Western and they were more than willing to sell regardless of the buyer’s age.
The quality of dime novels began to decline as it became custom for publishers such as Beadle to allow several authors to write on the same serial or character interchangeably. Eventually the plots became so predictable that the only selling points were increasingly fantastical settings, unbelievable situations and more vulgarity. What...
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...his proliferation of “questionable” content has proven that the average American reader makes choices based on personal tastes rather than on the opinions of highbrow academia or moral crusaders. It is a victory of free speech as well as the capitalistic principle of demand but also perhaps a blow to artistic integrity. Concerned parents and religious groups continue to fight against indecency but consumerism has become the most powerful modern censor. Today, sales are so important that many authors find themselves tethered to a narrowing range of themes and situations that appeal to an increasingly homogenized audience. As far as the corruption of youth is concerned, most parents today echo Bishop’s sentiments that any book is better than no book, pleased to see their children reading formulaic adventure stories or comics rather than glued to a television set.
n the “Pat Conroy Letter” (October 24, 2007) to the Charleston Gazette, Pat Conroy implies that the only good in banning books is giving students irresistible temptation to read them. Conroy emphasizes the dangers of banning books by juxtaposing books to real life utilizing diction, imagery, and conjunctions. He uses sarcasm in order to persuade the school board to change their book banning policy. Conroy captures the audience’s attention with a historical allusion to the Hatfields and McCoys to relate to the people in Charleston, West Virginia using sarcasm and humor in hopes of convincing that censorship is wrong.
"Unit 2: Reading & Writing About Short Fiction." ENGL200: Composition and Literature. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2011. 49-219. Web. 19 Apr. 2014.
Updike, John. “A&P”. The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction. Eds. R.V. Cassill and Richard Bausch. Shorter Sixth Edition. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2000. 864 - 869.
Variation in PTC sensitivity was first discovered in a lab incident in the early 1930s by Arthur L. Fox, an OSHA officer (Fox 1932), when Fox was pouring some PTC powder into a bottle and some “flew around in the air”, a co-worker nearby, C. R. Noller complained that the dust tasted bitter, but Fox insisted he could not taste anything. The two then took turns tasting the PTC powder and found they really differed dramatically in sensitivity. Fox tested “a large number” of people and found a distinct variation was common regardless of age, sex and ethnicity. He classified those people into two categories, those able to taste the PTC at very low concentrations whom he referred to as “tasters” and those unable to taste the PTC except at very high concentrations whom he referred to as “nontasters” or “taste blind”.2 Later several scientists including Fisher, Ford and Huxley (Fisher 1939) and others set out tests for PTC taste sensitivity and the implications of variability of the findings. However, despite almost 70 years of interest, these studies were missing a firm grasp of the molecular genetics of bitter-taste sensitivity.2
After hearing a brief description of the story you might think that there aren’t many good things about they story. However, this is false, there are many good things in this book that makes it a good read. First being that it is a very intriguing book. This is good for teenage readers because often times they don’t willingly want to read, and this story will force the teenage or any reader to continue the book and continue reading the series. Secondly, this is a “good” book because it has a good balance of violence. This is a good thing because it provides readers with an exciting read. We hear and even see violence in our everyday life and I believe that it is something teenagers should be exposed to. This book gives children an insig...
The three powerful stories including Saki’s “The Interlopers”, Erich Maria Remarque’s, All Quiet on the Western Front, and John Steinbeck’s, Of Mice and Men, portray the impact that friendship and companionship, or the absence of it, can have. Hector Hugh Munro, better known as Saki, was born in Burma while it was under the control of the British Empire. Near the beginning of World War I, Munro was enlisted into the 2nd King Edward’s Horse as a trooper at the age of 43. He soon rose to higher ranks and fought for many years. Unfortunately on November 1916, Munro was shot by a German sniper and died near France. His struggle has not only been through the physical tribulations of war, but also through the social stigma of being a homosexual during the times of World War I. Tragically, at this time, it was an unacceptable way of life and was looked down upon by society. Similarly to the adversity of war, Remarque also fought in World War I, but on the German side. He enlisted at the age of 18 and later was injured by a shrapnel wound to the leg, arm and neck. His struggles did not stop there as he was faced the immense heartbreak of losing his sister. Her death was a punishment to Remarque because of the portrayal of the Germans in his literature. Though Steinbeck did not go through the same experiences of war and loss as the other two authors have, he has experienced a fair share of struggle. Steinbeck won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1962 but was highly criticized as many people believed that he did not deserve the award, regardless of his many accomplishments such as “The Grapes of Wrath”. All of revered and respected men have shared a common theme throughout their lives, one being the impact of the ...
During the 19th and 20th century, America became a massive super power of cultural abundance and productivity. As William Leach states in his work The Land of Desire and the Culture of Consumer Capitalism, “the cardinal features of this culture were acquisition and consumption as the means of achieving happiness; the cult of the new; the democratization of desire; and money value as the predominant measure of all value in society” (Leach page 3). With the rise of consumption, Americans would begin to spend their few open hours entering dream worlds of fantasy and enchantment to suppress the bland monotonous confines and shackles of the new modern society. One work of unimaginable enticement that catapulted Americans deep into the realm of imagination and wonder was the Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum. The Wizard of Oz appears to be a magnificent tale about the quest for one’s identity and purpose in a world of ideological liberation and self-expression. However, if one unveils the ubiquitous layer of fantasy ornamented in the story, the mechanisms of capitalism reveal themselves. Furth...
Let's look at smell again, then. My last paper left off with the following conclusions regarding the olfactory system. There are between 500 and 1000 unique protein receptor genes which are expressed only in the olfactory epithelium. These receptors each respond to a unique odorant or to a unique feature on an odorant molecule (epitopes). It is suggested that there is a one - to - one relationship between a specific odorant, its protein receptor, and the sensory neuron: that is, any given sensory neuron expresses only one type of receptor and is therefore responsive to only one kind of odorant. Each type of neuron is randomly distributed across one of four zones within the olfactory epithelium. The information from this population coding is then reorganized, as these axons leave the epithelium and travel to the olfactory bulb, into a very specific, spatially organized map of activity across the several hundred kinds of receptors. The span between the 1000 types of receptor neurons, and discrimination amongst 10,000 odors, is bridged in the interpretation of the ratios and relationships of activity level across the population. The olfactory bulb was compared to an operators switchboard, and the process of odor identification was likened to determining which switchboard lights were flashing. The obvious question then becomes, what parts of the brain watch over the olfactory bulb, monitor its activity and interpret that activity? What parts of the brain assign meaning and identity to each pattern of stimulation, and then choose an appropriate response?
This burden often falls on teachers. The purpose of this research paper is to discuss censorship in schools and to argue that the censorship of books in the high school English curriculum is limiting and takes away literature that is meaningful to students. How a Book is Censored Brinkley describes a few actions that can lead to the censoring of a book in a school or school system: An expression of concern is simply a question about the material with overtones of disapproval; an oral complaint is an oral challenge to the contents of a work; a written complaint is a formal written challenge to the school about the contents of a work; and a public attack is a public statement challenging the contents of a work that is made outside of the school, usually to the media to gain support for further action (1999). Brinkley also points out an important difference between selection and censorship: Selection is the act of carefully choosing works for an English course that will be age-appropriate, meaningful, and fulfill objectives, while censorship is the act of excluding works that some con... ...
Censorship has been a factor in the lives of humans since long ago in the times of the ancients, however, its prominence increased during the Middle Ages when literature became more common. Take censorship of books, for example, which has been relevant since the time after the persecution of the church, when it banned books about and/or including superstitions or opposition towards them, such as the condemnation of Thalia by Arius, a novel which portrayed “a literal, rationalist approach to the New Testament texts” (http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/589822/Thalia), when “The First Ecumenical Council of Nicæa (325) condemned, not only Arius personally, but also his book... …The Emperor Constantine commanded that the writings of Arius and his friends should be burned and that concealing them was a capital crime, punishable by death.” (Rick Russell Former editor of AB Bookman's Weekly.) We look back on this as monstrous and wretched to deny someone their opinions and hide away the history from the public simply because it was in the favor of any particular group or sect. However, when we use censorship as a way for parents and teachers of children to regulate the reading material that we allow them to associate with, it’s suddenly justified and correct. Those censoring the books obviously think so. They hold the belief that they are protecting their youth from violence, harsh language, and crude humor. Parents and teachers around the nation censor The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain for similar reasons, but they continue to overlook the bigger picture. This title teaches the history of our nation, important life lessons, and the responsibilities of maturity and of growing up.
Bjerga, Alana. Ex-Boeing CFO pleads guilty in tanker deal scandal. November 16, 2004. Seattle Times. Retrieved on December 6th, 2011. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2002091816_webboeing16.html
Magill, Frank N., ed. Critical Survey of Short Fiction. Revised ed. Vol. 2. Pasadena: Salem Press, 1993. 7 vols.
Gillies, James. How the Web Was Born: The Story of the World Wide Web. New York:
5) Olfactory Receptors, Vomeronasal Receptors, and the Organization of Olfactory Information. From Cell, a journal
Literature has been part of society since pen met paper. It has recorded history, retold fables, and entertained adults for centuries. Literature intended for children, however, is a recent development. Though children’s literature is young, the texts can be separated into two categories by age. The exact splitting point is debatable, but as technology revolutionized in the mid-twentieth century is the dividing point between classic and contemporary. Today’s children’s literature is extraordinarily different from the classics that it evolved from, but yet as classic was transformed into modern, the literature kept many common features.