The Modernist Attributes of C.L.R. James’s Minty Alley Essay examples

When you hear the oxymoron “historical fiction” you might think of an anecdote about a John Doe in World War 2. In this case, think more on the lines of a fiction novel with a vast historical influence on culture. Fiction novels not only play a key role in the entertainment of an audience but also the influence they leave on them. However, in order to influence the audience, the novel must also be very historically accurate. The combination of influence and historical accuracy can create a new subcategory of “historical fiction”. Two exceptional novels by distinguished authors have managed to start this new concept of “historical fiction”. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald and Jazz by Toni Morrison are two literary novels that pioneered the movement of historical realism in fiction as well as influenced literary writing styles and United States culture for generations following their creation.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald shows many examples of modernism. Fitzgerald shows many modernism techniques like loss of control, alienation, corruption of the American Dream, breaking society’s rules and feeling restless. Fitzgerald also shows modernism through the fragmented writing.

In his collection of essays in Nobody Knows My Name, James Baldwin uses “Fifth Avenue, Uptown” to establish the focus that African Americans no matter where they are positioned would be judged just by the color of their skin. Through his effective use of descriptive word choice, writing style and tone, Baldwin helps the reader visualize his position on the subject. He argues that “Negroes want to be treated like men” (Baldwin, 67).

During this time period literature had a dominance of black women writers. Their writings focused on five major traits: dominance of black women writers, intertextuality, revisiting the past, reoccurrence of historiography, and broadening of horizons. Among the major writers only one was a male. The intertextuality circled around repeat writing, the response and revision of earlier themes and motifs. Each period adds to the existing one by utilizing new contexts to literature, themes and style.

One strong theme of modernism in literature is the attack and or decline of The American Dream. The American Dream is the idea that everyone, men, and women, have an equal opportunity to achieve wealth, success and or happiness through determination, and hard work, in other words, the pursuit of happiness. Two writers that illustrate this theme of modernism are F. Scott Fitzgerald, author of The Great Gatsby, and Ernest Hemingway, author of The Sun Also Rises.

Steinbeck’s novel Of Mice and Men is a perfect illustration of modernist literature from the 1930’s

Both Maya Angelou of "Champion of the World", and Amy Tan of "Fish Cheeks" write anecdotal short stories which express their isolation from the dominant Anglo culture while delving into deeper detail as to why they feel such a great sense of alienation. Although both stories take place within different settings and time periods, a primary commonality they share comes from within the detachment they feel as minorities within a larger, more dominant community. Each author expertly employs literary devices such as description and narrative style within their writing to express the primary underlying message of their anecdotal stories; however, placing emphasis on the descriptive aspects of a story and setting more often seems to give the audience greater clarity and insight into the situation and setting. In Tan's story, objects of familiarity and a myriad of overwhelming are described in intense detail. Therefore, Tan's heavy emphasis of description throughout her story resonates more strongly with the reader. By thoroughly analyzing the text, we can observe how and why the literary element which the authors place more focus on is an important aspect toward expressing the theme of cultural isolation, as well as to how Tan's usage of description give the audience more insight as a result.

In the film Sugar Cane Alley, the journey of a young orphan boy is illustrated in the island of Martinique located right outside France in the 1930s. The protagonist, Jose, must reside with his grandmother who must do the jobs of poor black’s which includes washing clothes and working the sugar cane plantations for the rich white’s in town. Jose manages to see the significant social and economic gaps through the multiple characters around him even after the abolition of slavery. This gap is further supported through the visits to the capital, Fort-de-France, where Jose gains the opportunity to further his education through a scholarship offer. As this educational journey progresses, the audience is able to see comparisons to Van Onselen’s article, traditional African roles, and the social tensions experienced by the mulattos in a predominantly black and white population.

In the novel “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part time Indian”, author Sherman Alexie shares a compelling story representing racial issues among communities and families in cultural areas today, and a boy’s journey to find who he truly is, while being torn between two cultures. In this novel the main character, young Junior finds himself truly understanding that he is more than just an indian. In order to know more about the plot behind the novel, author Alexie takes the reader into Junior’s perspective to bring the story to life and let the reader understand how racial issues along with family problems make a play into today’s society. The novel shows a countless number of situations Junior encounters that impact his life throughout the novel.

The book is written in a very distinctive manner (Collins 36). The use of language is most significant. Actually, the author uses African American ascent of English. Perhaps this is to exemplify the setting of his plot. Basically, the book has been criticized for employing African American English in language. Subsequently, the book has been written in a reflective manner. In fact the experiences of Janie fully epitomize the personal experiences of the author. The protagonist is a refection of the author. The book has also been written in a flashback method through Janie’s close friend. This is also an attribute that is worth to note (Minds 76). Fundamentally, the book has a unique style of presentation. And the

Teju Cole’s phenomenally written original novel majorly takes place in New York City. Cole character was easy to relate to because of his Nigerian American decent being that I am a Ghanaian American. Cole is a Nigerian American. He was born and raised in Lagos, Nigeria and came to the United States in 1992 at the age of seventeen. Cole is also well educated and is a graduate student at Columbia University. I found it insightful how in the novel Cole met several various types of people, including other immigrants. He met and shared stories with a Haitian shoe shiner, at work in Penn Station; a Liberian, imprisoned for over two years in a dentition center in Queens; and a Moroccan student working at an Internet café. I enjoyed the fact that the narrator was well stocked minded. He touched on the topics of art, music, and interesting books. He had a very eclectic set of interest.

Yinka Shonibare’s five-part image narration Diary of a Victorian Dandy exhibited in the London Underground invites public transit users to partake in the daily lifestyle of a black Victorian dandy. The irony inherent in the presence of a black dandy as the work’s centerpiece dismisses the functionality of British restrictions set in the Victorian Era by delving into the notions of race and social class. Specifically, by emphasizing the black dandy’s superiority over his white counterparts and introducing a harmonic interplay between lower and upper-tier social classes, Shonibare makes evident to public viewers that Victorian norms favouring upper-class society were not static and could have been transcended in both a racial and social

Trinidad, an island ravaged by colonialism, leaving its imprints on many, notwithstanding our prized writer, V.S. Naipaul. Miguel Street, published in 1959, is a collection of short stories about a fictional street in Trinidad and its occupants during the 1940’s. Each chapter focuses on a character and the experience had with the protagonist, a young boy. The British flooded the island with English literature and education, leaving many of the islanders lost in the sea of the forced external culture. Naipaul captures the effects of this colonialism, especially so in chapter six. This chapter is focused around a man, known as B. Wordsworth, who speaks proper English and dresses well. The story shows us, as Beck states, “the colonized subject responding to the English literary canon thrust upon him by colonial education and an imposed foreign culture.”

Impact of British Colonization Exposed in A Small Place, A Passage to India, and Robinson Crusoe

E.M. Forster’s classic novel “A Passage to India” tells the story of a young doctor, Dr. Aziz, and his interactions with the British citizens who are residing in India during the time of the British Raj. Throughout the novel, the reader gets many different viewpoints on the people and the culture of India during this point in history. The reader sees through the eyes of the Indian people primarily through the character of Dr. Aziz, and the perceptions of the British through the characters of Mr. Fielding, Adela Quested, and Mrs. Moore. Through the different characters, and their differing viewpoints, the reader can see that Forster was creating a work that expressed a criticism that he held of the behavior of the British towards their Indian subjects.