Article: 5 American Authors of Wealth, Poverty, and Inequality
It is a truism that novelists reflect the concerns of their times. In this article, we highlight the novels of five American authors who lived and wrote during a period of immense social inequalities and upheaval—the late Victorian period in Great Britain, and the Gilded Age in America.
The five novelists we have chosen to highlight are: Henry James (1843–1916), William Dean Howells (1837–1920), Frank Norris (1870–1902), Theodore Dreiser (1871–1945), and Edith Wharton (1862–1937). Within a comparatively brief span of two decades (1885 to 1905), these authors produced five novels from which it is possible to take in a sweeping view of the massive transformations that were taking place in societies on both sides of the Atlantic through economic development, the concentration of wealth and power, and intense class conflict.
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2 comments:
Post by Colleen:
Because it is fun to do this:
Reaction to November's assigned reading-
For many of the students in my program here at S.U., their first exposure to socioeconomic disparity comes from their experiences with us in the Syracuse community. From the reflections and comments my tutors make after spending days/weeks/months at a site, it is evident that many of them are used to hearing stats about low literacy and graduation rates, but few of them have actually experienced them.
The books in reviewed in this article reminded me so much of those students who are getting their first “taste” of a life not quite as comfortable as their own. Once they process what is happening, the tutors want to tell everyone about how unfair x, y, and z policies are, and what needs to change. Which is great! It is so energizing to see a student come into my office who ifeels the disparity, who has made personal connections and who iwants change.
Is awareness, writing a book (reflection) on a social problem enough? Is a change in personal understanding enough to eventually effect real change? Is it worth the effort to fully understand a problem if you don't use it to work toward social change for those who need it?
PS lots of questions, would love answers.
To answer Colleen's question, I think that writing a book can be a huge turning point into raising awareness about a particular issue. Jacob Riis' "How The Other Half Lives" demolished the barriers between high society and the poor. The photos, most of which were even more shocking than Riis' words, conveyed a sense of desperation and, ultimately, resignation. Once Riis cast these individuals into the limelight, however, the general public was forced to confront the fact that this was an everyday part of life for so many Americans, and that their suffering was going unnoticed.
I think that knowledge - any kind of knowledge, under any set of circumstances - is essential to our lives. While this knowledge may not necessarily be used to solve a disparity, we may find it useful to cultivate and pass on to others who are in a better position to affect those in need.
A quick comment about the article: Maybe this is just me being an English major and addicted to books, but I've always found that writers, like poets, have this uncanny ability to comment on our social systems as though they were above them, removed from them, even exempt from them. Some choose to immerse themselves in their chosen sector, much like Jacob Riis did, while others tend to dangle on the outskirts and weave delicate metaphors into their language that we see today as totally obvious references to the poor and to the suffering. For Wharton's audience, however, these were merely characters in a novel, and they weren't given too much thought after the book was concluded. Wharton's audience was, in a sense, disconnected and therefore represented their own brand of socioeconomic disparity, while those of Jacob Riis' time were yearning to find a cause to believe in, and to fight for.
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