Lost Generation
The Lost Generation was a time of sadness and confusion. People felt lost and hurt because of what happened in World War 1, so they wrote about it, writers like Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, T.S. Eliot, John Dos Passos, Ezra Pound, Ford Madox Ford, Kay Boyle, and the writer my paper is about, Sherwood Anderson. Sherwood Anderson’s relates to the Lost Generation very well, he talks about sadness, confusion, and how strange people are. Those ideas he writes about are exactly how the Lost Generation is. The stories that i will be talking about are The Dumb Man, Seeds, War, and The Book of Grotesque. All the stories are similar and have one great similarity, they all talk about how strange people act. Even though these writers sort of write in the same way, they all have different qualities. Sherwood Anderson stood out to me because his stories were very interesting and he was a little bit easier to understand. Sherwood Anderson was one of the more popular writers of this era, His short stories were very thought out and correlated very well with the ideas of the Lost Generation.
In the short story, “The Dumb Man”, Sherwood Anderson explains how their is three men with different personalities are all in the same place. Sherwood explains how he doesn’t understand how that one man can be so happy in such a time and place of sadness, how he could be so happy when nothing around him is happy. I think he is happy because he is alive, he probably looks at the better and brighter things in life instead of being lost and sad all the time like everyone else in the “lost generation”. When the story says that “The three men are waiting--waiting” I think they are waiting for death, They’ve dealt with so much and they j...
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...she was until it was too late. She thought that love would be easy to find, but came to find out it is very difficult and sometimes love is even really love at all, just mixed emotions.
So all these stories are very similar with the “Lost Generation”. These stories are about sadness and confusion, these people in the story are lost and can’t seem to be happy. Sherwood Anderson was a great writer and her stories matched the ideas of the “Lost Generation” perfectly. My favorite story was “The Dumb Man” because there was actually a little happiness. So, my essay has explained how Sherwood Anderson’s ideas correlate with the ideas of the “Lost Generation”
Works Cited
http://www.shortstoryarchive.com/a/dumb_man.html http://www.shortstoryarchive.com/a/seeds.html http://www.shortstoryarchive.com/a/war.html
http://cichlostgeneration.blogspot.com/p/sherwood-anderson.html
Written in 1937, Of Mice and Men, by John Adolf Steinbeck Jr., American author and Pulitzer Prize winner, follows the lives of downtrodden farmhands, George and Lennie. As with many of Steinbeck's books, the themes in Of Mice and Men include his favored themes of class warfare and oppression of the working class. Steinbeck also focuses his literature on the power of friendship and the corrupt nature of mankind. In 1993, Professor Thomas Scarseth wrote a critical analysis of the novella analyzing many aspects of Steinbeck’s work including the presentation, themes, and writing style. In his essay, Scarseth explains the key themes of the Novella. He noted that the corrupted nature of man, the injustice of life, and the power of friendship were three important themes of the book. Much of Scarseth’s analysis contained numerous thoughtful insights. Were his insights and opinions valid, or were his, and Steinbeck’s, perspectives on these issues flawed?
Overall the readers may feel sad about the story of the Of Mice and Men because of the three themes that he has used in the novel. The three themes: Freedom and confinement, loneliness, and racism show the struggle that George and Lennie go through throughout the
There is an old cliché that talks about how life isn't a bowl of cherries and that it presents hardships to everyone. Thomas Hobbes takes this cliché to another level when he says, "The life of man [is] solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." To most this quote is depressing and dismal, but in many literary works, it portrays the plot that develops throughout the work. From Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye, to Hamlet in Shakespeare's play Hamlet, and even Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby, the life of man doesn't seem all that it's cracked up to be. These characters face struggles that lead them to become depressed, lonely, senile, and even mad. Whether they are losing their fathers, the love of their lives, or themselves, these characters are a part of a story that shows very little light. The themes of these various works are fall across a similar spectrum as they deal with the misery that life can bring.
In my essay I will discuss the theme of loneliness in the novel “Of Mice And Men.” The essay will consist of information based on the novel towards minor characters such as Curley’s Wife, Candy and Crooks. This essay will state information about Curley’s Wife, Candy and Crooks’ loneliness.
The authors John Steinbeck and Robert Burns approach their ideas in very different ways, while having the same themes the reader comprehends key concepts in a different light. Throughout the short story “Of Mice and Men” and the poem “To a Mouse” the theme of hope is a key concept, even though while in both stories their hope did not bring them their happiness, friendship brought them together. Correspondingly while having similar themes of friendship, loneliness, and hope, this all takes place in different settings with different characters.
It is important to note how each individual story is similar and different, because it allows us to understand how the emotions in the book affect us. ‘The Interlopers’ and ‘Story of an Hour’ are two of my favorite short stories. They are both very different, and have their own unique style. They are, also, somewhat similar. This is because the authors of the book are both similar and different, both in their backgrounds and personalities. In this essay I will be comparing and contrasting both short stories from my own point of view.
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Novels can create the power to teach the reader about people and life. Steinbeck’s novel “Of Mice and Men” that was set in the 1930’s American depression, teach readers about how humans need company and the impact of loneliness. These themes are shown through the characters experiences with power and powerlessness. Steinbeck shows his readers the need for compassion in times of cruelty. Steinbeck used his imagination to produce a novel that explores all the different experiences we come across in
The events in the novel are predicated upon the death of Joel's mother. The account of his mother's death and the upheaval it caused for him (p 10 ) is more poignant to a reader who has experienced the untimely death of a parent than to one who has not. The reader who has experienced the loss can identify with everyone “always smiling” and with the unexplainable changes in one's own behavior toward others as one adjusts to the emptiness.
The fictional life and death of a twelve year old little boy named Robert is vividly articulated in this moving tale by Thomas Wolfe. The reader learns of the boy’s life through four well developed points of view. The reader’s first glimpse into Robert’s character is expressed through a third person narrative. This section takes place on a particularly important afternoon in the boy’s life. The second and third views are memories of the child, through the eyes of his mother and sister. His mother paints the picture of an extraordinary child whom she loved dearly and his sister illustrates the love that the boy had for others. Finally, an account from the narrator is given in the ending. It is in the last section of this work that the narrator attempts to regain his own memories of his lost brother.
Loneliness is a theme that is always visible when one reads Of Mice and Men, and the forms of loneliness discussed are still applicable to today’s life. Many of the characters admit to suffering from profound loneliness and it really captures the life people were living during the Great Depression. John Steinbeck uses this novel to uncover and chronicle the circumstances that cause human suffering during this era. Each character’s loneliness is relatable though, and can be empathized with even today.
Sherwood Anderson: Dimensions of His Literary Art. Ed. David D. Anderson. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1976. 41-60. Rpt. In Short Story Criticism. Ed. Jessica Bomarito and Jelena O. Krstovic, Vol. 91. Detroit: Gale, 2006. Literature Resource Center. Web. 14 Mar. 2011.
With the end of the first World War in the year 1918, many soldiers, young and old, came home to their families dark and cynical. Many famous authors of this time, like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway, wrote short stories not of their times at war, but of how material the world truly is. These were considered the “Lost Generation,” due to their lack of belief in humans in general and their dreary outlook of life in general. F. Scott Fitzgerald is famous for his book, The Great Gatsby which showed how he as an author viewed the Roaring Twenties, as one of the main themes is the idea that the American Dream is dead and humans are fickle and obsessed with material things, like money. On the opposite end of the spectrum, though, was the bright young generation, which “came into power” shortly after the Lost Generation. These young people were full of bright ideas and with the American Economy is a good place, everyone seemed to be happy. Art and fashion changed drastically, w...
Short stories are temporary portals to another world; there is a plethora of knowledge to learn from the scenario, and lies on top of that knowledge are simple morals. Langston Hughes writes in “Thank You Ma’m” the timeline of a single night in a slum neighborhood of an anonymous city. This “timeline” tells of the unfolding generosities that begin when a teenage boy fails an attempted robbery of Mrs. Jones. An annoyed bachelor on a British train listens to three children their aunt converse rather obnoxiously in Saki’s tale, “The Storyteller”. After a failed story attempt, the bachelor tries his hand at storytelling and gives a wonderfully satisfying, inappropriate story. These stories are laden with humor, but have, like all other stories, an underlying theme. Both themes of these stories are “implied,” and provide an excellent stage to compare and contrast a story on.
The post World War II period had an enormous impact on American society and literature. Many important events occurred and affected directly to the movement of American literature. During this period, American Literature reflected the movement of disillusionment, and portrayed the lost generation. Many WWII writers adapted new approaches and philosophies in writing their novels. They portrayed the lost generation, anti-war perspective and explored the true meaning of “war hero”. Among them, the pioneers are Bernard Malamud, Ken Kesey and Joseph Heller, who wrote the Natural, One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and Catch-22.