The twenties was as the "Roaring twenties", "Jazz Age", "Age of Intolerance", and "Age of Wonderful Nonsense". The 18th amandment was created banning the sale, distribution, and consumption of alcohol. That amendment made sparks fly and America was introduced to the gangsters and flappers. The most infamous gangster was Al Capone.
The 1920s was the ending of wartime and the beginning of a peacetime economy. Tariffs were raised on imported goods. The manufacture of war weapons came to a hault, which helped Americas economy. During this era, America was the richest country on earth. Another thing that was introduced to America during the 20s was Jazz. The most famous Jazz artists were Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Fletcher Henderson.
Charlie Chaplin and Rudloph Valentino were the most popular "Silent Film" stars during this decade. Walt Disney made his first cartoon, Alice's Wonderland.
The art style, Art Deco, influenced architecture, art, clothing, hairstyles, and decorationsAt this time, the radio was the most common household item. The first public radio station was KDKA stationed in Pittsburgh.
Then at the worst time, when everything was at its best, the Stock Market crashed on October 24, 1929.
A Farewell to Arms
In the book A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway, the book reflects on events in World War I which took place before the book was written. The first main character in the book, Lieutenant Frederic Henry, is an ambulance driver in the American army serving in Italy. The second character is Catherine Barkley, a nurse in Italy during the war. The two met because of Henry’s injury in the war and are later separated again because of the war. World War I a major influence on the book A Farewell to Arms and the book is written about the war. (Ernest Hemingway)
One of the big influences in the book is the “Lost Generation.” This is the generation of soldiers coming back from World War I and the hardships they deal with to adjust with regular life. Henry, the main character, is part of the “Lost Generation” and his relationship with Catherine is what helps him adjust to normal life. The "Lost Generation" was a large effect of World War I, many soldiers returning home from the war found themselves without jobs, and without money. Because of the declining economy after the war the U.S. government was unable to pay many of the soldiers, leaving them without any money to restart their life. Another effect of the economy was little jobs for the troops coming home, leaving them jobless and without work. (The Lost Generation)
The Sun Also Rises
The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway, was written in the 1920s about a young Jewish writer going through a divorce and decides to go to Europe to see his friends. He meets his friend Jake in France and is trying to convince him to travel to South America for a while, but Jake doesn't want to. You quickly begin to be introduced to other characters about his age, whose early 20s were consumed by World War I and are just living their life, without thinking about consequences (Bloom).
Because of World War I, the traditions, values, and beliefs of faith manhood, and love were changed. Hemingway used his life experiences to influence his books. In 1925 Hemingway went to Spain with friends to the Fiesta de San Fermin, which he mentions for a good part of the book. Even though the war wasn’t directly talked about in The Sun Also Rises, anyone could tell by the writing and description that it was (Corral). In choosing the title of the book, Hemingway wanted to “emphasize the optimistic idea of progress,” which says a lot about his yearning for things to go back to the way they were (Balassi).
The Age of Innocence
The Age Of Innocence is about a wealthy family in the setting of the late 1800s. The main character, Newland Archer, a wealthy lawyer, is engaged and soon to be wed to the typical for the time period, May Welland. Soon after, a short visit from May's cousin, Countess Olenska, Archer has come to the conclusion that he has fallen in love with her. She was raised in Europe, and her husband had cheated on her. I believe Archer see's her as a breath of fresh air. Something different and new, totally not conforming with the standard New York Society stereotype set up for women of her class. She in seen in New York as inappropriate and she is considered quite unorthodox for that time period. In the book, everyone is torn between their duty to themselves, and their family and their personal wants and emotions.
The 1920's influenced The Age of Innocence with its modern relationship trends. The book, set in the 1870's has events occur in it that were rare to the time period, but more prevelant during the 1920s. Such as infedelity in engagement and marriage, and having a child out of wedlock. In the case of this book, I believe history influenced literature. Such as religious values and beliefs and old fashioned, and more prevalent morals. Religion doesn't play a major role in the book, also probably from the influence in the time period it was written, but the values and beliefs of having children before marriage and with someone who is not your spouse is still there. Another way history influences the novel, was that in the book the characters dressed rather tradionally to the time period. The women wore formal dresses to formal occasions, and dressed rather conservatively. Except in one part of the novel Countess Olenska was described as dressing "innappropratly" by showing to much cleavage at an opera. Men wore traditional clothing, aside from when formal attire was aquired. All the clothing described in the book was appropriate for the time period of the 1870s.
Our Town
Our Town is about the typical town in America in the early 1900s in Grover's Corner, New Hampshire. The stage manager makes his way around the stage introducing characters and maps out the landmarks of the town. The main characters in Our Town are: the stage manager, Mr. and Mrs. Gibbs, Mr and Mrs. Webb, and their children. Our Town is not centered around around a conflict, but it focuses on giving the audience an idea of what a typical town in America is like. Each character has their own small conflicts, but it never becomes the main focus of the play. Throughout the play, the stage manager introduces new characters. The stage manager pretty much controls this play. In act two, he announces that the time has skipped three years. George Gibbs has married the Webb's daughter, but the stage manager wants to see how their relationship started, so he takes the audience back a few years. Grover's Corner is a small town that has a lot of history. Most of the people who live there have ancestors that have died and are buried on the "hill". The Stage manager knows what the past was and what the future of the town has, but he wants the characters to tell the story through the show instead of him directly telling them. At the end of this book the stage manager sets up the stage as the "hill". The gravestones represents which characters have died. Mrs. was offered 350 dollars for a highboy (Wilder,19), which is a piece of furniture that was popular in the early 1900s. She really wanted to go to Paris, France with the money. The only way to get to Europe was by ship (www.swirk.com). Airplanes were not invented yet. Thorton Wilder expressed how transportation in America blossomed with the invention of the car. The stage manager was playing a drugstore owner when George and Emily ran in. Emily had been talking about how George has changed a lot. So when they walk in the stage manage notices how she was upset, and they made up the excuse that a man driving a horse drawn wagon almost hit her. The drugstore owner, the stage manager, told Emily she should be careful because people are starting to buy the “auto-mo-biles”(Wilder,65). “Dogs could sleep in the middle of the road for a day and not be disturbed”(Wilder,65)
"Transport in the early 1900s." www.swirk.com. Red Apple Education, 2010. Web. 10 Nov 2010.. Wilder, Thorton. Our Town. New York City: Harper and Row, 1938. 103. Print.
My Antonia
My Antonia by Willa Cather is about a young boy named Jim Burden and his life in Nebraska with his grandparents during the late 1800s and early 1900s. He was orphaned at ten years old and moved from Virginia to Nebraska. Within the first few days of moving, Jim meets the Shimerdas, a Bohemian family that had just immigrated from Bohemia. Mr. Shimerda asks Jim to teach English to Antonia, his eldest daughter. Along with Jim helping Antonia with English, they explore the area because it is so amazing to both of them. When tragedy strikes, Jim and Antonia struggle to keep their friendship alive and it becomes even harder when Jim and his grandparents move to the city from the country. Antonia works in the fields with her older brother Ambrosch and doesn’t have time to see Jim. One day, Mrs. Burden, Jim’s grandma, suggests to Mrs. Harling, their neighbor, that she hire Antonia to do housework. Antonia is hired and she and Jim get to see each other more often. When a dance tent comes to town, Antonia and her friends, Lena and Tiny, go together and get unwanted reputations, but that doesn’t stop them from going and having fun. Eventually, Jim is accepted to the University of Lincoln and studies very hard his first few years. After a few years at Lincoln, Jim decides to attend Harvard University to start things over. Twenty years later, Jim was convinced by Lena to visit Antonia. By then, Antonia was married, had children, and was living on a successful farm. My Antonia relates to history because of the coming to the United States. 24 million immigrants arrived in the United States between 1880 and 1920. However, many of the immigrants stayed in populous cities like Chicago and New York (The Immigrant). In My Antonia, the Shimerdas go west in hopes of being successful farmers. Most immigrants that time were also illiterate in their own language, let alone in English; nor could they speak English (The Immigrant). The Shimerdas were like this—expressed when Mr. Shimerda asked Jim to teach English to Antonia.
The Grapes of Wrath
The book I read was The Grapes of Wrath written by John Steinbeck, portraying the life of migrant workers in the 1930s. The story begins with a man named Tom Joad, who has just got out of jail, but the reason for which he was imprisoned is never revealed. He arrived one hot summer day to his family’s farm just in time to be told that they are being forced off their land. Work is so few in Oklahoma, that the family has become so desperate that they have to move to California. After arriving in California no jobs are available and they are again poverty stricken.
The book The Grapes of Wrath talks about the life of migrant workers for the 1930s, the time of the Dust Bowl. Steinbeck manages to capture the look and feel of what it would be like to live at that specific point in history. The lives of Migrant workers are portrayed in this story as Tom Joad and his family, who are without money and with no money their house is taken. Steinbeck had a chance to visit all the poverty stricken land after seeing this chilling reality he was empowered to write The Grapes of Wrath describing the event. Making references to the just being so thick that at times it would even block out the sun.
Works Cited
Drowne, Kathleen, and Patrick Huber. The 1920s. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2004. Print.
Wharton, Edith. The Age of Innocence. New York: Fine Creative Media, Inc., 2004. Print.
"The Immigrant." Facts about Immigration. N.p., n.d. Web. 8 Nov 2010.
Meyering, Sheryl. Understanding O Pioneers! and My Antonia. Westport, CT: Greenwood
Press, 2002. Print.
Bloom, Harold. "Ernest Hemingway: Bloom’s Major Novelists." Chelsea House Publishers. Broomhall, Pa. 2000. 10 November, 2010. Print.
Corral, Carmen. The Textual History of The Sun Also Rises. 1999. 10 November, 2010. Web.
Balassi, William. "The Trail to The Sun Also Rises: The First Week of Writing."Hemingway, Essays of Reassessment. Ed. Frank Scafella. New York: Oxford UP, 1991. 10 November, 2010.
Shaw, Samuel. Ernest Hemingway. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1973. Print.
“The Lost Generation”. The Lost Geneartion. N.p. Web. 11/10/2010
Book: Bloom, Harold. Bloom’s Notes. Broomall, PA: Chelsea House Publishers, 1996. Print.
Web: Ganzel, Bill. “The Dust Bowl”. FARMING IN THE 1930s.Ganzel Group . 2003. Web. November 9, 2010.
How Do Literature and History Interact?
Between the Wars:
The twenties was as the "Roaring twenties", "Jazz Age", "Age of Intolerance", and "Age of Wonderful Nonsense".
The 18th amandment was created banning the sale, distribution, and consumption of alcohol. That amendment made sparks fly and America was introduced to the gangsters and flappers. The most infamous gangster was Al Capone.
The 1920s was the ending of wartime and the beginning of a peacetime economy. Tariffs were raised on imported goods. The manufacture of war weapons came to a hault, which helped Americas economy. During this era, America was the richest country on earth.
Another thing that was introduced to America during the 20s was Jazz.
The most famous Jazz artists were Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Fletcher Henderson.
Charlie Chaplin and Rudloph Valentino were the most popular "Silent Film" stars during this decade. Walt Disney made his first cartoon, Alice's Wonderland.
Then at the worst time, when everything was at its best, the Stock Market crashed on October 24, 1929.
A Farewell to Arms
In the book A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway, the book reflects on events in World War I which took place before the book was written. The first main character in the book, Lieutenant Frederic Henry, is an ambulance driver in the American army serving in Italy. The second character is Catherine Barkley, a nurse in Italy during the war. The two met because of Henry’s injury in the war and are later separated again because of the war. World War I a major influence on the book A Farewell to Arms and the book is written about the war. (Ernest Hemingway)One of the big influences in the book is the “Lost Generation.” This is the generation of soldiers coming back from World War I and the hardships they deal with to adjust with regular life. Henry, the main character, is part of the “Lost Generation” and his relationship with Catherine is what helps him adjust to normal life. The "Lost Generation" was a large effect of World War I, many soldiers returning home from the war found themselves without jobs, and without money. Because of the declining economy after the war the U.S. government was unable to pay many of the soldiers, leaving them without any money to restart their life. Another effect of the economy was little jobs for the troops coming home, leaving them jobless and without work. (The Lost Generation)
The Sun Also Rises
The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway, was written in the 1920s about a young Jewish writer going through a divorce and decides to go to Europe to see his friends. He meets his friend Jake in France and is trying to convince him to travel to South America for a while, but Jake doesn't want to. You quickly begin to be introduced to other characters about his age, whose early 20s were consumed by World War I and are just living their life, without thinking about consequences (Bloom).
Because of World War I, the traditions, values, and beliefs of faith manhood, and love were changed. Hemingway used his life experiences to influence his books. In 1925 Hemingway went to Spain with friends to the Fiesta de San Fermin, which he mentions for a good part of the book. Even though the war wasn’t directly talked about in The Sun Also Rises, anyone could tell by the writing and description that it was (Corral). In choosing the title of the book, Hemingway wanted to “emphasize the optimistic idea of progress,” which says a lot about his yearning for things to go back to the way they were (Balassi).
The Age of Innocence
The Age Of Innocence is about a wealthy family in the setting of the late 1800s. The main character, Newland Archer, a wealthy lawyer, is engaged and soon to be wed to the typical for the time period, May Welland. Soon after, a short visit from May's cousin, Countess Olenska, Archer has come to the conclusion that he has fallen in love with her. She was raised in Europe, and her husband had cheated on her. I believe Archer see's her as a breath of fresh air. Something different and new, totally not conforming with the standard New York Society stereotype set up for women of her class. She in seen in New York as inappropriate and she is considered quite unorthodox for that time period. In the book, everyone is torn between their duty to themselves, and their family and their personal wants and emotions.
The 1920's influenced The Age of Innocence with its modern relationship trends. The book, set in the 1870's has events occur in it that were rare to the time period, but more prevelant during the 1920s. Such as infedelity in engagement and marriage, and having a child out of wedlock. In the case of this book, I believe history influenced literature. Such as religious values and beliefs and old fashioned, and more prevalent morals. Religion doesn't play a major role in the book, also probably from the influence in the time period it was written, but the values and beliefs of having children before marriage and with someone who is not your spouse is still there.
Another way history influences the novel, was that in the book the characters dressed rather tradionally to the time period. The women wore formal dresses to formal occasions, and dressed rather conservatively. Except in one part of the novel Countess Olenska was described as dressing "innappropratly" by showing to much cleavage at an opera. Men wore traditional clothing, aside from when formal attire was aquired. All the clothing described in the book was appropriate for the time period of the 1870s.
Our Town
Our Town is about the typical town in America in the early 1900s in Grover's Corner, New Hampshire. The stage manager makes his way around the stage introducing characters and maps out the landmarks of the town. The main characters in Our Town are: the stage manager, Mr. and Mrs. Gibbs, Mr and Mrs. Webb, and their children. Our Town is not centered around around a conflict, but it focuses on giving the audience an idea of what a typical town in America is like. Each character has their own small conflicts, but it never becomes the main focus of the play. Throughout the play, the stage manager introduces new characters. The stage manager pretty much controls this play. In act two, he announces that the time has skipped three years. George Gibbs has married the Webb's daughter, but the stage manager wants to see how their relationship started, so he takes the audience back a few years. Grover's Corner is a small town that has a lot of history. Most of the people who live there have ancestors that have died and are buried on the "hill". The Stage manager knows what the past was and what the future of the town has, but he wants the characters to tell the story through the show instead of him directly telling them. At the end of this book the stage manager sets up the stage as the "hill". The gravestones represents which characters have died.Mrs. was offered 350 dollars for a highboy (Wilder,19), which is a piece of furniture that was popular in the early 1900s. She really wanted to go to Paris, France with the money. The only way to get to Europe was by ship (www.swirk.com). Airplanes were not invented yet. Thorton Wilder expressed how transportation in America blossomed with the invention of the car. The stage manager was playing a drugstore owner when George and Emily ran in. Emily had been talking about how George has changed a lot. So when they walk in the stage manage notices how she was upset, and they made up the excuse that a man driving a horse drawn wagon almost hit her. The drugstore owner, the stage manager, told Emily she should be careful because people are starting to buy the “auto-mo-biles”(Wilder,65). “Dogs could sleep in the middle of the road for a day and not be disturbed”(Wilder,65)
"Transport in the early 1900s." www.swirk.com. Red Apple Education, 2010. Web. 10 Nov 2010..
Wilder, Thorton. Our Town. New York City: Harper and Row, 1938. 103. Print.
My Antonia
My Antonia by Willa Cather is about a young boy named Jim Burden and his life in Nebraska with his grandparents during the late 1800s and early 1900s. He was orphaned at ten years old and moved from Virginia to Nebraska. Within the first few days of moving, Jim meets the Shimerdas, a Bohemian family that had just immigrated from Bohemia. Mr. Shimerda asks Jim to teach English to Antonia, his eldest daughter. Along with Jim helping Antonia with English, they explore the area because it is so amazing to both of them. When tragedy strikes, Jim and Antonia struggle to keep their friendship alive and it becomes even harder when Jim and his grandparents move to the city from the country. Antonia works in the fields with her older brother Ambrosch and doesn’t have time to see Jim. One day, Mrs. Burden, Jim’s grandma, suggests to Mrs. Harling, their neighbor, that she hire Antonia to do housework. Antonia is hired and she and Jim get to see each other more often. When a dance tent comes to town, Antonia and her friends, Lena and Tiny, go together and get unwanted reputations, but that doesn’t stop them from going and having fun. Eventually, Jim is accepted to the University of Lincoln and studies very hard his first few years. After a few years at Lincoln, Jim decides to attend Harvard University to start things over. Twenty years later, Jim was convinced by Lena to visit Antonia. By then, Antonia was married, had children, and was living on a successful farm.My Antonia relates to history because of the coming to the United States. 24 million immigrants arrived in the United States between 1880 and 1920. However, many of the immigrants stayed in populous cities like Chicago and New York (The Immigrant). In My Antonia, the Shimerdas go west in hopes of being successful farmers. Most immigrants that time were also illiterate in their own language, let alone in English; nor could they speak English (The Immigrant). The Shimerdas were like this—expressed when Mr. Shimerda asked Jim to teach English to Antonia.
The Grapes of Wrath
The book I read was The Grapes of Wrath written by John Steinbeck, portraying the life of migrant workers in the 1930s. The story begins with a man named Tom Joad, who has just got out of jail, but the reason for which he was imprisoned is never revealed. He arrived one hot summer day to his family’s farm just in time to be told that they are being forced off their land. Work is so few in Oklahoma, that the family has become so desperate that they have to move to California. After arriving in California no jobs are available and they are again poverty stricken.The book The Grapes of Wrath talks about the life of migrant workers for the 1930s, the time of the Dust Bowl. Steinbeck manages to capture the look and feel of what it would be like to live at that specific point in history. The lives of Migrant workers are portrayed in this story as Tom Joad and his family, who are without money and with no money their house is taken. Steinbeck had a chance to visit all the poverty stricken land after seeing this chilling reality he was empowered to write The Grapes of Wrath describing the event. Making references to the just being so thick that at times it would even block out the sun.
Works Cited
Drowne, Kathleen, and Patrick Huber. The 1920s. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2004. Print.
Wharton, Edith. The Age of Innocence. New York: Fine Creative Media, Inc., 2004. Print."The Immigrant." Facts about Immigration. N.p., n.d. Web. 8 Nov 2010.
Meyering, Sheryl. Understanding O Pioneers! and My Antonia. Westport, CT: Greenwood
Press, 2002. Print.
Bloom, Harold. "Ernest Hemingway: Bloom’s Major Novelists." Chelsea House Publishers.
Broomhall, Pa. 2000. 10 November, 2010. Print.
Corral, Carmen. The Textual History of The Sun Also Rises. 1999. 10 November, 2010. Web.
Balassi, William. "The Trail to The Sun Also Rises: The First Week of Writing." Hemingway,
Essays of Reassessment. Ed. Frank Scafella. New York: Oxford UP, 1991. 10 November,
2010.
Shaw, Samuel. Ernest Hemingway. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1973. Print.
“The Lost Generation”. The Lost Geneartion. N.p. Web. 11/10/2010
Book:
Bloom, Harold. Bloom’s Notes. Broomall, PA: Chelsea House Publishers, 1996. Print.
Web:
Ganzel, Bill. “The Dust Bowl”. FARMING IN THE 1930s.Ganzel Group . 2003. Web. November 9, 2010.