Unseen American.

The American Dream

"Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness’

American idiology

 modern liberal democracy and free-market capitalism.

freedom, personal choice, individualism, social mobility.

• Thomas Jefferson established these principles and promoted the idealised characteristics exhibited by modern Americans: 

• self-determination, independent, industrious, morally just

modern american expansion

• The unification of America following the Civil War and the abolition of slavery in 1865 formed modern America, but divisions between north and south remained. 

• Migrants across Europe travelled to America to escape: crop-failure, prejudice and discrimination, lack of land-access due to governmental control and ‘enclosure’ (the feudal system), avoiding restrictive class structures. 

• Natural resources and free land were a major draw for migrants to America. 

• The concept of Manifest Destiny (the idea that white Americans were divinely ordained to settle the entire continent of North America.)

• The c19th saw the American administration legislate for the forced occupation of the western States and the eradication of Plains Indian/First Nation culture.  The invention of the railroad was a huge catalyst for western expansion- the trans-continental railroad was completed in 1869, having taken just 6 years to build. 

• The homesteading phenomenon followed legislation which promised free-land to settlers. 

The Dawes Act (1887) essentially ended land rights for Plains Indian populations

American mythology

Hard work = success

American success

• 1900-1930: On average 6 million people arrive in America every decade. 

• Transition from a agricultural economy to an administrative one- modern metropolises like Chicago, New York etc. 

• This transition propelled huge numbers of women into the workplace.

• Huge numbers of black migrants moved north to more ‘tolerant’ environments (esp. Chicago). 

• In 1880 20% of the population lived in cities.  In 1920 68% did.  

• “The business of the American people is business”  President Calvin Coolidge, in January 1925…

• By this time America was the world’s biggest economy…rampant capitalism and a fixation on private industry + profit informed American home policy. 

• 1914-1918: manufacturing of weapons, economies of Europe were crashing, European people required additional food + resources. 

American culture

• Many texts from the period 1880-1940 present individuals or groups pursuing better living circumstances. 

• Natural resources and free land were a major draw for migrants to America. 

• The 1880s saw the American administration legislate for the forced occupation of the western States. 

• Migrants across Europe travelled to America to escape: crop-failure, prejudice and discrimination, lack of land-access due to governmental control and ‘enclosure’ (the feudal system), avoiding restrictive class structures. 

• America presented: land, individual endeavour and hard work will be rewarded with financial success, racial tolerance (ethnic cleansing of Plains Indians and the racial stratification that accompanied slavery)

• Attitudes to race: Jim Crow laws create a culture of racism + segregation (white/black).

• Legislation (1900-1930): numbers limited entering the country: Chinese, Japanese, Romany, ‘Balkan’    

A04

Many texts from the period 1880-1940 present individuals or groups pursuing better living circumstances.

writing sytle

The romanticism of the early c19th gradually gave way to realism, naturalism and modernism

Romantists

transcend the immediate to find the ideal in their writing. Realists centre their attention to a remarkable degree on the immediate, the here and now, the specific action, and the consequence"

Realists

write about individuals tested by circumstance.

Diction

(speaking/dialogue) is natural and vernacular, not heightened or poetic.

Naturalism

was a literary movement or tendency from the 1880s to 1930s that used detailed realism to suggest that social conditions, heredity, and environment had inescapable force in shaping human character.

american modernist and social realist literature

• was a dominant trend in American literature between World War I and World War II. The modernist era highlighted innovation in the form and language of poetry and prose, as well as addressing numerous contemporary topics, such as race relations, gender and the human condition. 

a02

• Paragraph lengths.

• Sentence forms: length/fluency.

• Dialogue.

• Shifts in focus.

• Language form: specific/concrete vs conceptual. 

• Setting.

• External vs internal. 

• Genre + style (characteristics of naturalism or realism)

• Position/placement within the novel (some guesswork here) 

• Perspective.

• Narrative voice.

• Sequencing + ‘progress’ of the extract (beginnings, middles, ends)

• Style (reach for carefully selected adjectives here) 

• Tone/mood/atmosphere.