John Dos Passos: The 42nd Parallel, And The Big Money
Nic Longdo
Nicholas Sloboda
ENGL 222-001
17 May 2013
Dos Passos’ Modes of Presentation One thing that makes John Dos Passos’ U.S.A. trilogy – The 42nd Parallel, 1919, and The Big Money – stand out from the works of Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, and other Lost Generation writers is his use of form. Dos Passos successfully blends fiction with nonfiction through an experimental technique that he uses in the U.S.A. trilogy. This experimental technique uses four distinctive modes of presentation: the Newsreel, the Camera Eye, biographical portraits, and a number of personal narratives. At first glance the modes that Dos Passos incorporated into the three novels do not seem to make a whole lot of sense because the content itself does not seem to be organized. Some of the …show more content…
The timeline of the story is set up in the Newsreel through a collage of newspaper headlines, political oratory, and popular songs that were used during the first three decades of the twentieth century (Beal, n. pag.). Headlines from Newsreel LXVIII includes titles like “WALL STREET STUNNED,” “MOSCOW CONGRESS OUSTS OPPOSITION,” “MILL THUGS IN MURDER RAID,” “RED PICKETS FINED FOR PROTEST HERE,” and “PRESIDENT SEES PROPERITY NEAR” (Dos Passos, “The Big” 691-93). The political oratory from this section is harder to interpret as the reader is not certain who stated the words. However, just by examining the context, the reader can put the pieces together and pinpoint the timeline of the story as the oratories focus on labor strikes, the negative aspects of imperialist propaganda, and the actions of President Calvin Coolidge (Dos Passos, “The Big” 691-93). Popular songs used in this particular Newsreel include the majority of the lyrics from a song titled “Wreck of the Old ‘97” and excerpts from a Socialist labor-union protest song (Dos Passos, “The Big”
Nicholas Sloboda
ENGL 222-001
17 May 2013
Dos Passos’ Modes of Presentation One thing that makes John Dos Passos’ U.S.A. trilogy – The 42nd Parallel, 1919, and The Big Money – stand out from the works of Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, and other Lost Generation writers is his use of form. Dos Passos successfully blends fiction with nonfiction through an experimental technique that he uses in the U.S.A. trilogy. This experimental technique uses four distinctive modes of presentation: the Newsreel, the Camera Eye, biographical portraits, and a number of personal narratives. At first glance the modes that Dos Passos incorporated into the three novels do not seem to make a whole lot of sense because the content itself does not seem to be organized. Some of the …show more content…
The timeline of the story is set up in the Newsreel through a collage of newspaper headlines, political oratory, and popular songs that were used during the first three decades of the twentieth century (Beal, n. pag.). Headlines from Newsreel LXVIII includes titles like “WALL STREET STUNNED,” “MOSCOW CONGRESS OUSTS OPPOSITION,” “MILL THUGS IN MURDER RAID,” “RED PICKETS FINED FOR PROTEST HERE,” and “PRESIDENT SEES PROPERITY NEAR” (Dos Passos, “The Big” 691-93). The political oratory from this section is harder to interpret as the reader is not certain who stated the words. However, just by examining the context, the reader can put the pieces together and pinpoint the timeline of the story as the oratories focus on labor strikes, the negative aspects of imperialist propaganda, and the actions of President Calvin Coolidge (Dos Passos, “The Big” 691-93). Popular songs used in this particular Newsreel include the majority of the lyrics from a song titled “Wreck of the Old ‘97” and excerpts from a Socialist labor-union protest song (Dos Passos, “The Big”