Unseen Literature examples

Question 1

The Wasteland

Answer 1

December 1922 - Lost generation, inspired Americans
T.S. Elliot

Question 2

Babbit

Answer 2

Sinclair Lewis, 1922
Rural area turns industrial
Satire about how wealth changes people
Focus on cars - new wealth markers
over-the-top stereotypical depiction of a newly-rich person, Sinclair satirises the obsession with capitalism that has started to infiltrate the idea of the concept of the American Dream in the 1920s

Question 3

Ethan Frome

Answer 3

Edith Wharton
1911
Marriage restrictions in divorce

Question 4

Hands

Answer 4

Sherwood Anderson
1919
From Winesburg, Ohio

Known for stories that gave a choice to small town American characters and their plight as they searched for the American Dream

Writes of struggles between the material and spiritual worlds - labour conditions and marriage

The stories of the collection are loosely connected by journalist George Willard (character), who writes of the sometimes grotesque sides of the human condition, including poverty, marginalisation, love and romance

Freudian, analysis, sex-orientated, gay pedophillia, zooming in and out of the narrative constantly
Modern style of narration = third person omniscient, conversationa;
At the end nothing happens but we learn something abt the character
Dreamy, soft descriptions
Unreliable narration
conversations of sex ahead of his time

Question 5

So Big

Answer 5

Edna Ferber, 1924

• Selina’s experience in agricultural labour in the 1920s as agriculture began to decline as an industry due to industrialisation
• ‘New Woman’ literary archetype though working class women have always worked, particularly in Agriculture
• Struggle with nature
• Reliance on external support to achieve the American Dream - big business in Farm work