Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
the main theme of 20th century russian literature
essay on the geography of russia
the main theme of 20th century russian literature
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: the main theme of 20th century russian literature
Richard Russo’s novels Empire Falls and Nobody’s Fool examine the relationships between individuals in a small town environment. In Empire Falls, Miles Roby and his family have stayed in Empire Falls for much of their life with no foreseeable change in the future. In Nobody’s Fool, Donald “Sully” Sullivan has lived in North Bath, NY since he was a child and seems to have deteriorated with the town. In both novels, the towns have declining economic prospects and the residents have little engagement with happenings outside their towns. The landlocked geography of Empire Falls, ME and North Bath, NY has a profound impact on each character's ability to evolve personally and intellectually.
Empire Falls is located several hours from a major metropolitan area and is depicted as very inclusive, to the extent that many residents are unfamiliar with the geography of the neighboring towns. The town is described as “pervaded by an atmosphere of resignation, depression, and decay” (Allen 259). The geography of Empire Falls inflicts an attitude of fatalism among its victims, causing isolationism and depression. One such victim is Miles Roby. In the beginning of the novel, Miles states, “no matter how well you planned something, God always planned better. If he was feeling stingy that day and didn’t want you to have some little thing you had your heart set on, then you weren’t going to get it and that was all there was to it” (Russo, Empire Falls 5000). Miles’ attitude is a recipe for laziness and failure, as it encourages diverting accountability for the state of progress from the able-bodied human to a higher power. Assuming Miles is referring to Christianity, Miles would be directed to seek God’s guidance for the plan rather than believing t...
... middle of paper ...
...5-56. Print.
Prager, Michael. "Run-of-the-Mill? Not Empire Falls." Boston Globe [Boston] 27 June 2001: D13. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Vol. 181. Detroit: Gale, 2001. 256-57. Print.
Prose, Francine. "Small-Town Smart Alecks." New York Times 20 June 1993: 1. Print.
Proulx, Annie E. "What It Takes to Endure the Lost, Stubborn Citizens of Richard Russo's Upstate New York." Chicago Tribune Books 30 May 1993: 1. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Vol. 181. Detroit: Gale, 1993. 235-36. Print.
Russo, Richard. Empire Falls. New York: Vintage, 2002. Print.
Russo, Richard. Nobody's Fool. New York: Vintage, 1994. Print.
Smith, Wendy. "Richard Russo: The Novelist Again Explores the Crucial Impact of Place on Individual Destinies." Publishers Weekly 7 June 1993: 43-44. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Vol. 181. Detroit: Gale, 1993. 237-40. Print.
In September 1954, he moved out of Northwood in Long Island onto the Northern State Parkway to see his new house in the countryside. He specifically said that Long Island had been one of the most beautiful places in the United States, and his house was one small reason it would not remain that way much longer. His new house lacked in exterior grandeur, but it made up for comfort inside and costs in all together $25,000. Kunstler got his first glimpse of what real American towns were like when he was sent away to a boys’ camp in Lebanon, New Hampshire. He visited his hometown Northwood when he became a teenager and saw how it has entered into a coma with so little for one to do there. Northwood had no public gathering places, so teens were stuck in their little holes who smoked pot and imitated rock and roll. For the teenagers there, the waiting transforming moment was when one became a licensed driver, as I can say the same about my town. Kunstler went to a state college in a small town, Brockport in western New York State. The college was the only thing that kept the town alive with healthy conditions where it was scaled to people, not cars. He ends the chapter by pointing out that this book is an attempt to discover how and why landscape of scary places, the geography of nowhere, has simply ceased to be a credible human habitat happened and what we might do about
Eder, Richard. "Pain on the Face of Middle America." Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Daniel G. Marowski. Detroit: Gale Research Publishing, Inc., 1986. 103.
...n & Co., Inc., 1962); excerpted and reprinted in Contemporary Literary Criticism, Vol. 3, ed. Carolyn Riley (Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1975), p. 526.
Perkins, Geroge, and Barbara Perkins. The American Tradition in Literature. 12th ed. Vol. 2. New York: McGraw Hill, 2009. Print
215-225. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism Select. Detroit: Gale, 2008. Literature Resource Center. Web. 30 Mar. 2014.
1970, pp. 7-8. Rpt. In The Chelsea House Library of Literary Criticism. New York.:Chelsea House Publishers, 1988.
Heller, Joseph. The Chelsea House Library of Literary Criticism. Twentieth-Century American Literature Vol. 3. New York. Chelsea House Publishers, 1986.
Baym, Nina, and Robert S. Levine. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. New York London: W. W. Norton & Company, 2012. Print.
6th ed. New York: St. James Press, 1996. Literature Resource Center. Web. 26 Jan. 2014.
Heller, Joseph. The Chelsea House Library of Literary Criticism. Twentieth-Century American Literature Vol. 3. New York. Chelsea House Publishers, 1986.
Belasco, Susan, and Linck Johnson, eds. The Bedford Anthology of American Literature. Vol. 1, 2nd Ed., Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2014. 1190-1203. Print.
Meyer, Michael. The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2008. 2189.
Physical surroundings (such as a home in the countryside) in works of literary merit such as “Good Country People”, “Everyday Use”, and “Young Goodman Brown” shape psychological and moral traits of the characters, similarly and differently throughout the stories.
Baym, Nina et al. Ed. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Shorter 8th ed. New York:
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. "Essay date 1935." Twentieth-Century Litirary Criticism 9. Ed. Dennis Poupond. Detroit: Gale Research, 1983. 316-317