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Great depression and literature essay
How the Great Depression Spawned Literary Masterworks
Great depression and literature essay
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Authors get their ideas on paper in many ways. They can use their imagination making up everything from thin air. They can use their past experiences or experiences that others relate to them. A better explanation about how authors end up writing what we read is best clarified by an author themselves. Ursula Le Guin an American novelist explains, “I don't believe that a writer "gets" (takes into the head) an "idea" (some sort of mental object) "from" somewhere, and then turns it into words, and writes them on paper. The stuff has to be transformed into oneself, it has to be composted, before it can grow into a story.” If that is too complicated to understand we have the help of Robertson Davis a Canadian novelist who says, “I don't get them (ideas) they get me.” We may not ever know completely as readers how stories are created, but we can see that daily life influences everyone. This is no different for authors. What authors encounter in their daily life can easily influence what they write about. After reading some stories by Zora Neale Hurston, one can see how much the era she lived in had an effect in her writing. Her short stories “The Glided-Six Bits" and “Sweat” portray signs of The Great Depression and poverty life that was present during Hurston’s time.
Hurston lived through a sad historical event in American history: The Great Depression. The Great Depression was a period of worldwide economic depression that lasted from 1929 until approximately 1939. The starting point of the Great Depression is usually listed as October 29, 1929, commonly called Black Tuesday. This was the date when the stock market fell dramatically 12.8%. Herbert Hoover was president at the beginning of the Great Depression. He tried to institute re...
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Hurston, Zora. “Sweat”. The Story and Its Writer: An Introduction to Short Fiction. 8th Edition. Ann Charters. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2011. 564-572. Print.
Hurston, Zora. “The Gilded Six-Bits”. The Story and Its Writer: An Introduction to Short Fiction. 8th Edition. Ann Charters. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2011. 556-564. Print.
Kelly, Martin. "What was the Great Depression?." About.com American History. About.com, 1 Jan. 2014. Web. 1 May 2014. .
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Hurston, Zora Neale. "Sweat." Norton Anthology of Southern Literature. Ed. William L. Andrews. New York: Norton, 1998.
After nearly a decade of optimism and prosperity, the United States took a turn for the worse on October 29, 1929, the day the stock market crashed, better known as Black Tuesday and the official beginning of the Great Depression. The downfall of the economy during the presidency of Herbert Hoover led to much comparison when his successor, Franklin D. Roosevelt, took office. Although both presidents had their share of negative feedback, it is evident that Hoover’s inaction towards the crisis and Roosevelt’s later eccentric methods to simulate the economy would place FDR in the positive limelight of fixing the nation in one of its worst times. Herbert Hoover was sworn into office when the economic status of the country stood at its highest and the nation was accustomed to a prosperous way of living. When the stock market plummeted and took its toll on the citizens from coast to coast, it was out of his control.
Hurston, Zora Neale. “Sweat.” The Custom Library of American Literature. John Bryant. Boston, Massachusetts: Pearson Custom Publishing, 2008. 440-445.
4. Hurston, Zora Neal. Their Eyes Were Watching God. New York: Harper Collins, 1937. Print.
Rosenblatt, Roger. “Roger Rosenblatt’s Their Eyes Were Watching God.” Rpt. in Modern Critical Views of Zora Neale Hurston. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House, 1986. 29-33. Print.
The Great Depression was a period in United States history when business was poor and many people were out of work. The beginning of the Great Depression in the United States was associated with the stock market crash on October 29, 1929, known as Black Tuesday. Thousands of investors lost large amounts of money and many were wiped out, lost everything. Banks, stores, and factories were closed and left millions of Americans jobless and homeless (Baughman 82).
An Anthology For Readers and Writers. 5th ed. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martins, 2012. 1283-1296. Print.
Stillinger, Jack, Deidre Lynch, Stephen Greenblatt, and M H. Abrams. The Norton Anthology of English Literature: Volume D. New York, N.Y: W.W. Norton & Co, 2006. Print.
Waggoner, John. "Is Today's Economic Crisis Another Great Depression?" USA Today. N.p., 4 Nov. 2008. Web. 7 Mar. 2014.
“The Gilded Six Bits,” by Zora Neale Hurston is about a happily married couple, Missy May and Joe Banks, who discovers that something is missing from their life when sly Slemmons comes to town. The story exhibits how capitalistic-patriarchy dominates and eventually distorts Joe and Missy May’s marriage.
In Hurston 's short story “Sweat”, the theme is expressed in many ways throughout the story, though most prominently by way of domestic violence and ungratefulness shown
Charters, Ann & Samuel. Literature and its Writers. 6th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2013. 137-147. Print.
Evans, Robert C., Anne C. Little, and Barbara Wiedemann. Short Fiction: A Critical Companion. West Cornwall, CT: Locust Hill, 1997. 265-270.
The black Tuesday, October 29th, 1929 has been identified as the symbol of the Great Depression. Stock holders lost 14 billion dollars on a single day trade, and more than 30 billion lose in that week, which was 10 times more than the annual budget of the Federal government.[ [documentary] 1929 Wall Street Stock Market Crash
The Great Depression was a period of first-time decline in economic activity. It occurred between the years 1929 and 1939. It was the worst and longest economic breakdown in history. The Wall Street stock market crash started the Great Depression. It had terrible effects on the country (United States of America).