Recent Changes

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
Inhtmldiff4_GoBack The book I read was htmldiff5 The Grapes of Wrath htmldiff6 written by John Steinbeck, portraying the mixedlife of it.
So much workmigrant 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 do.

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.
htmldiff7The book htmldiff8 The Grapes of Wrath htmldiff9 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 htmldiff10 The Grapes of Wrath htmldiff11 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.
Shaw, Samuel. Ernest Hemingway. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1973. Print.
“The Lost Generation”. The Lost Geneartion. N.p. Web. 11/10/2010
htmldiff13Book:
htmldiff14Bloom, Harold. Bloom’s Notes. Broomall, PA: Chelsea House Publishers, 1996. Print.
htmldiff15Web:
htmldiff16Ganzel, Bill. “The Dust Bowl”. htmldiff17 FARMING IN THE 1930s.Ganzel Group htmldiff18 . 2003. Web. November 9, 2010.

Catcher in the Rye
The Catcher in the Rye is a story about a troubled boy in the 50's. After flunking out, once again, from a boarding school, he decides to go home a few days earlier than his parents are expecting. Holden, the main character, does not care much for school. His bigger interests include drugs, alcohol, and sex. After he spends his extra days in New York, Holden comes to the conclusion that he wants to be a "catcher in the rye", meaning he wants to catch little kids before they fall off a cliff. Throughout the book Holden sings "if a body catch a body, coming through the rye". These are the wrong lyrics to the song he is thinking of. The correct words are "if a body meet a body", which Holden's little sister reminds him of after he sneaks back home. The song is actually about two people asking if it is wrong to meet in a field when it is not out of love. The whole theme of The Catcher in the Rye is children growing up. When Holden sings "if a body catch a body", the under meaning is that he wants to save children from becoming corrupt by entering the grown up world like he has.
The significance of The Catcher and the Rye and its time period is that it’s post-World War II. Holden talks about the war (and the effect it's had on his brother D.B.) with a slightly sad attitude. He mentions the Atomic bomb, which the U.S. brought out in August of 1945, four to five years earlier than Holden's narration. The dropping of the bomb is a sort of a nation-wide "loss of innocence".
Invisible Man
_GoBack

We have decided that history influences literature, things written about in the books we have read, were influenced from real events in history. History shows through in our books using actual events that have happened in the past and customs that were shown using characters in the books.
WWII/Post WWII: Catcher in the Rye, Invisible Man, The Old Man and the Sea, Death of a Salesman
really like.
After WWII African American soldiers came back from the war feeling increased need for equality and respect. They wanted their sense of freedom. The rights movement consisted of peaceful protests to gain rights. But underneath it all, blacks were still hated and discriminated against to this day.
and individuals.
The
The 1950s was adult world.



_GoBack
_GoBackInvisible Man was written during the 1950s by Ralph Ellison. It is about a young black man whose name is never mentioned in the book. He is from the south. He always used to disregard his grandfather’s dream in which he shows his anger towards the whites. And thought that the best way to be successful is to obey the white’s. He first realizes about the racism in society when he went to local men’s club in which he read his speech that he had wrote during his graduation. In which he got humiliated by the white men in the club. But he was rewarded scholarship to a black men college and a brief case. After a few days in college he was rusticated. And told to work in Harlem, New York. In Harlem he got a job in a communist party called Brother hood as a speaker. Due to that he got caught in racial politics and betrayal. He got caught in a riot and fell in a Man Hole. In an all white’s building he lived in the basement. He runs into Mr. Norton in subway and decides not to obey to white people’s expectations of him. Instead maintain who you are.
the society.
The Old Man and the Sea
The Old Man and the Sea, was written in the early 1950's by Ernest Hemingway. The story opens in a small fishing village in Cuba, where the main character, Santiago, is introduced. He is an old man who does not have the best luck when it comes to catching fish. Santiago has a young boy named Manolin to assist him in hisescapades. He tought Manolin key fishing techniques from the young age of 5. Santiago is a very poor man who has had bad luck in cathcing fish recently. He has not caught a fish in 84 days and is growing weary in pessimism. On the 85th day Santiago decides to take a trip way out, past where everyone else is scared to go. He takes Manolin out with him, and they begin fishing. They hook a Huge 18 foot marlin and instead of bringing it in, the marlin begins to pull the boat around the sea. He quickly thinks to secure a line, but then realized that the huge fish would snap the taut line, Santiago takes the strain with his shoulders, hands, and back. The fish pulled the boat all through the day, night, next day, and through the next night. The whole time Santiago is supporting the fish with his body, causing personal pain to himself throughout the whole event. On the third day, the fish finally tires, and Santiago is able to kill it. On the return trip he ties the marlin to the skiff and tows it home, along the way the sharks of the warm Cuban waters attack the fish the whole trip home. Santiago fends them off as much as he could, but the sharks had taken their toll and the multi-thousand pound monster was now only a bloody skeleton, head, and tail of the fish.
Works Cited
Death of a Salesman: Bloom,Harold. Arthur Miller. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987
Moss, Joyce & Wilson, George. Literature and Its Times. 1997. Print.
Ellison, Ralph. Invisible Man. Random House, Inc.: 1952. Print.

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).
love were changed (Sparknotes).changed. Hemingway used
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.
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)
Nov 2010..
Wilder,
Wilder, Thorton. Our 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.
Bloom, Harold. "Ernest Hemingway: Bloom’s Major Novelists." Chelsea House Publishers.
Broomhall, Pa. 2000. 10 November, 2010. Print.
SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on The Sun Also Rises.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC.
2003. Web. 8 Nov. 2010.
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,

Class summmary of findings goes here
Pre WWI: The Scarlet Letter, Call of the Wild, The Red Badge of Courage
long time.
Between the World Wars: A Farewell to Arms, The Sun Also Rises, The Age of Innocence, Our Town, My Antonia, The Grapes of Wrath
We have decided that history influences literature, things written about in the books we have read, were influenced from real events in history. History shows through in our books using actual events that have happened in the past and customs that were shown using characters in the books.
WWII/Post WWII: Catcher in the Rye, Invisible Man, The Old Man and the Sea, Death of a Salesman
Group summmaryIn a time when perfect was considered the norm, these novels show that they ugly underbelly of findings goes here
what the world was really like.
After WWII African American soldiers came back from the war feeling increased need for equality and respect. They wanted their sense of freedom. The rights movement consisted of peaceful protests to gain rights. But underneath it all, blacks were still hated and discriminated against to this day.
The 1950’s saw the steady economic rise after the Great Depression. Credit Value was increasing and Americans felt that they could have anything. In reality buying on credit slowly crippled families and individuals.
The 1950s was thought to be a time of perfection and perfect families. In reality, it was not. The loss of innocence after the war was great and families were not that white picket fence picture. The war corrupted children into growing up and moving into the adult world.



Invisible Man
_GoBack
him. Instead he will bemaintain who he is.you are.
Invisible man in Harlem. The racism going onRacial politics meant, the distinguish between the African American'sAmericans and Whites during that time. whites. The whites were considered more prosperous than African Americans. The whites were the upper class and the African Americans were in the lower class. The African Americans were always in the second place and were ignored in the society.
The Old Man and the Sea
The Old Man and the Sea, was written in the early 1950's by Ernest Hemingway. The story opens in a small fishing village in Cuba, where the main character, Santiago, is introduced. He is an old man who does not have the best luck when it comes to catching fish. Santiago has a young boy named Manolin to assist him in hisescapades. He tought Manolin key fishing techniques from the young age of 5. Santiago is a very poor man who has had bad luck in cathcing fish recently. He has not caught a fish in 84 days and is growing weary in pessimism. On the 85th day Santiago decides to take a trip way out, past where everyone else is scared to go. He takes Manolin out with him, and they begin fishing. They hook a Huge 18 foot marlin and instead of bringing it in, the marlin begins to pull the boat around the sea. He quickly thinks to secure a line, but then realized that the huge fish would snap the taut line, Santiago takes the strain with his shoulders, hands, and back. The fish pulled the boat all through the day, night, next day, and through the next night. The whole time Santiago is supporting the fish with his body, causing personal pain to himself throughout the whole event. On the third day, the fish finally tires, and Santiago is able to kill it. On the return trip he ties the marlin to the skiff and tows it home, along the way the sharks of the warm Cuban waters attack the fish the whole trip home. Santiago fends them off as much as he could, but the sharks had taken their toll and the multi-thousand pound monster was now only a bloody skeleton, head, and tail of the fish.


Works Cited
Death of a Salesman: Bloom,Harold. Arthur Miller. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987

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
the early 1900s.1900s in Grover's Corner, New Hampshire. The stage typical town in America is like. 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.


Works Cited
Nov. 2010. <http://www.amazon.com/1900s-American-Popular-Culture-Through/dp/0313313342>.
http://www.amazon.com/1900s-American-Popular-Culture-Through/dp/0313313342.
- Moss, Joyce, and George Wilson. Ancient times to the American and French Revolutions: (prehistory - 1790s). Detroit [u.a.: Gale Research, 1997. Print.