( 2 5 ) C h a n g i n g t h e M i d w e s t
(Sherwood Anderson, Willa Cather, Sinclair Lewis)
S h e r w o o d A n d e r s o n
[See Topic 24 "Modernism..."]
W i l l a C a t h e r ( 1 8 7 3 – 1 9 4 7 )
L i f e :
-b. in VA x but: moved to the agricultural NE > a deeply rooted regionalism
-worked as a NY magazine ed., journalist, and teacher
-became a full time writer (1912)
W o r k :
-wrote novels, short stories, and poetry
-< S. O. Jewett
-< drew on her own childhood experience in NE
-portrayed the region and the life
-criticised the materialist society
-criticised the unjust position of women in the Am. society: a topical feminism in her women characters trying to find themselves, their own lives, and independence
-portrayed the aspirations of young men and women in the frontier conditions: defeat and betrayal x hope and will
-analysed one’s day dreams and the result of these dreams in courage: her planters in the wilderness preserving their virtues and moral strength
-emphasises the role of the past and the relig. faith – see her Death Comes for the Archbishop
Alexander’s Bridge (1912):
-her 1st novel
O, Pioneers! (1913)
Song of the Lark (1915)
My Ántonia (1918):
-the wilderness x planter settlements; immigrant families x native b. Am.; weak and irresolute men x strong and energetic women
-a sentimental idealisation of the past
-a loving attachment to nature: the role of the sun, seasons, etc.
-Á.: an ambivalent character = very masculine in the way of achieving what she wants x very feminine in the nature of her achievement (a husband and large family)
-a scandal: strong-willed women punished in the earlier lit. x but: Á. ends up happy
Breakdown after the woman she loved married, recovered to write:
A Lost Lady (1923), The Professor’s House (1925), and Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927):
-written after she recovered from the breakdown after the woman she loved married
-Death Comes for the Archbishop conc. with a Rom. Cath. missionary in the NM frontier areas
Si n c l a i r L e w i s ( 1 8 8 5 – 1 9 5 1 )
-< anticipated by M. Twain's Puddn’head Wilson and Hucklebbery Finn, E. L. Master’s Spoon River Anthology, and W. D. Howells’s novels
-for a decade attacked materialism, the greediness of Am. business, and the stifling effects of Am. provincialism
(a)the mediocrity, narrowness, and paralysis of the Midwestern small-town life
(b)the corruption of the Am. dream by materialism and denial of individualism, in the tradition of muckrakers (lived some time in U. Sinclair’s experimental commune)
-deconstructed some myths x but: also created some myths of his own – his Arrowsmith
-introd. the word babbitt = a philistine
-the 1st Am. writer to receive the Nobel Prize for lit.
-combined realism, satire, and romance in shifting and sometimes strained combinations
Main Street (1920):
-the F protagonist tries to enlighten the small town with ‘culture’ x but: fails
Babbitt (1922):
-the mediocre businessman tries to rebel against materialism x but: fails and adopts the mediocrity
Arrowsmith (1925)
-a young idealistic doctor devoted to his research tries to defend himself against people exploiting his contrib. for profit
-contrasts idealism x materialism, satire x sympathy and pity with A.
Elmer Gantry (1927)
Dodsworth (1929)