AM – week 4

John Dos Passos

John Dos Passos is a typically modernist author and far more experimental than what we have seen so far. Anderson anticipated many
modernist techniques but still was not this high modernist. John Dos Passos is the first novelist who is radically modernist.

Paintings: Edward Munch, Scream The Burning City, 1913, Ludwig Meidner

- influenced Dos Passos

This painting is in many ways a representation of the movement in painting called Expressionism. In many ways, Expressionist
painting techniques and theme found their way into Manhattan Transfer. Many critics called it the Expressionistic picture of New
York (NY). You can get some idea of the themes by looking at the picture.

The title is The Burning City. The motif of many of the Expressionist painters (early 20 th ct.) was to depict modern urban cityscapes,
big cities (NY in Manhattan Transfer), such as places that could be seen, if you use biblical metaphors, as the seats of evil, corruption,
social injustice, violence, crime, competition (all the negative things.)

At the same time, they also symbolise glory, progress, prosperity, and wealth. Such an image occurs both in modernist painting and in
modernist literature.

Here you see the motif of a big city with its towers and buildings, which seem to be on fire. You see the blue smoke somewhere out
there – the smoke of something burning. Modern cities are presented as modern hell, and something that later found its way in
comic books – modern cities presented as a tentacle monster, literally speaking, which devours its citizens and all that come to that
city hoping to change something and get rich (almost personified as a living organism devouring and spitting out the newcomers). We
find a lot of this in Manhattan Transfer.

Edward Munch is one of the most famous names of Expr., came to epitomise modernist painting. One of his most famous works is
Scream. He gives expression to existential fear of human beings, feeling desolation, alienation, disconnection, loneliness, desperation,
fragmentation, of human individual in the age of modernism.. All protagonists in modernist novels are like this nameless figure in
Munch's painting Scream.

Dos Passos was born in the 19 th ct., 1896, but lived longer than Sinclair Lewis. He comes from a rich family, second-generation
immigrants. His family name is Jests. This rich background enabled him to travel widely as a young man; he was to Italy, Greece,
France, England, and Middle East. Thus, he acquired a very good education and life experience.

He studied at Harvard, the most prestigious university, from 1913 to 1916, which corresponds to the outbreak of WWI. In the midst
of WWI, he broke off his studies and decided to go to Europe, and he served there as an ambulance driver, as Ernest Hemingway
later. And similar to him, he also tried himself at journalism.

Hemingway was a correspondent in Spain, and John D.P. did a similar thing. Unlike Hemingway, D.P. had leftist, socialist, pro-
communist political views. Thus, in Manhattan Transfer you can sense a lot of social critique. Very soon he became disillusioned
with communism as an idea (around 1937). He retained part of the leftist political background, but he also renounced many
communist theories. He remained torn apart both in his life and literature between two things – his disillusionment, disappointment
with any kind of ideology (in Manhattan Tr. we can see his disillusionment with the American Dream being vulgarised, as we have
already seen in Babbitt, where it is presented in a different technique).
He was disillusioned with his nation, with the path America was taking, and also, politically speaking, with capitalism as such, with
the idea of neoliberal market that controls everything. So, he became equally disillusioned with capitalism and communism. He was
torn apart between these various kinds of disillusionment that he experienced and his urge to be a social activist. He always wanted to
be more active socially and politically, and he partially managed to do that in his literature. When you read Manhattan, you find a lot
of social criticism, and through it he wanted to confront readers with both good and bad (even more) sides of modernisation,
technologisation capitalism, and the consumer society.

Before Manhattan, which came out in 1925, he wrote two novels. One Man's Initiation: 1917 (came out in 1920); Three Soldiers, his
anti-war novel in 1921, where he unmasked the war propaganda that preceded the outbreak of WWI. He also portrays the
consequences, among other things psychological and mental, but also physical and spiritual consequences and devastation that WWI
brought to the Europeans and Americans, esp. to the Americans that took part in this war.

We will always go back to these themes, as well as those we established as modernist: failure of communication, feeling of
loneliness, alienation, and fragmentation of personality. You would see that in the background, and at the root of this
dissatisfaction and this changed attitude to the world of people in this time, reflected in the literature, lies the disillusionment after
people had seen the horrors of WWI. This is also one of the first works on the list that deals with this; Three Soldiers most directly,
but you find echoes in M.T. in some of the characters.

Just as popular as M.T. was in the 1930s his so-called USA Trilogy which, according to some critics, represents even more detailed
and more devastating critique of the American capitalism, its social ills, negative soc. consequences of ruthless competition, and soc.
injustice.

There are three books in one: The 42nd Parallel (1930), 1919 (1932), and The Big Money (1936). In this trilogy, like in M.T., he
heavily experimented with the form, so he is one of the greatest experimentators in the field of the American modernist literature.
There you can also recognise his pro-Leftist views. His definite split with the idea of communism being a utopian idea happened a
year after the last book of his trilogy was published.

Dos Passos, as you can see in the novel, was a multitalented person. He was writing not only fiction, but also poetry and dramas. He
tried himself at painting, studied architecture for a while, was politically very active and conscious. All of this is obvious in M.T.

However, after 1937, politically he turned more conservative, and when you look at this novel, it is in a long tradition of novels about
the big city. We had a tradition of literature revolving around the small town, like Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio, and here
he depicts the life in a big city – another tradition.

It is one of the most famous NY novels in the American literature. You can practically say that NY is the protagonist of his novel,
which is very modernist. NY features are the central figure of the novel, as well as the central theme and character, figuratively
speaking, made of millions of people who come every day to find their destiny there, the sounds, lights, sights of NY, constant flow of
traffic, skyscrapers, upright modern towers that we have already seen described in Sinclair Lewis’s Zenith.

Only, this time this is not an imaginary city. Traffic, bars, skyscrapers, advertisements, patchwork of newspaper articles from the age,
of popular tunes, songs, jazz compositions. It is a huge blend of all those things which made part of this very experimental novel.

What you find here is not a traditional plot and there is not a single person which could be considered a real hero, all of them are on an
equal level.

The novel consists of a very rapid, quick exchange of short scenes, so he imitates the moves of the camera. He imitates
cinematographic techniques in the writing of the novel, which is another modernist feature, because cinema was emerging at the
beginning of the 20th ct. as the new artistic branch, so that many authors were fascinated by it. Some more and some less successfully
transferred these techniques into their writing. So, when you go through the novel, you have this rapid exchange of scenes, somebody
counted that there are more than 130 short scenes squeezed into the pages of M.T.

There are at least 40 better constructed and more prominent characters, with dozens of other minor, fleetingly episodic characters.

The novel takes place at various parts of NYC at the same time. This change of location does not take place from one chapter to the
next, but within one single chapter, and this pattern repeats in every succeeding chapter. You have simultaneous scenes (e.g. 3, 4, or 5
locations of NYC depicted within a single chapter). He quickly moves from one scene to the next, from one part of NY to the opposite
part of it, with different characters as well as diff. situations. When you read the novel at the beginning, you are utterly confused
because you have to simultaneously follow 3, 4, or 5 diff. threads of story. That was his principle of simultaneity (princip
istovremenosti).

He uses the cinematic techniques of montage and collage, which famous filmmakers of the age were using e.g. Eisenstein, a
Russian film director whose favourite technique was to juxtapose various scenes of diff.content, so when you look at them juxtaposed,
you filter out a certain social or political message or criticism. As when you watch a film, and you first see a brilliant skyscraper
where rich people live, and then camera zooms on to the shabby parts of the town. This is cinematic language, without saying
anything it conveys an implicated political message. This is a technique Dos Passos uses in his novel. He constantly, rapidly, without
warning or announcement to the reader changes scenes within a single chapter, and this repeats till the end.

Another feature of this novel is that each chapter heading is called after a part of NY, which again reinforces the idea that NY is
the real protagonist. The very title Manhattan Transfer is a very rapid transit underground subway station, had been esp. at that time
in NY, a juncture where people quickly change trains to go into a different direction.

The title itself suggests the lifestyle and the feel of the big city in the early 20 th ct., which reflects the age of modernism. The stress is
on the means of modern communication, subway is associated with the rapid movement through the city, going from place to
place. Something that is depicted in The Great Gatsby as well, people who are running after profit, careers, to fulfil their duties, and
never having enough time. That is partly depicted in Stopping by Woods on a more naive and calmer level.

The headings of the first chapters, The Ferryslip, Metropolis; so, sometimes those are not only parts of NY, but somehow these
headings suggest certain locations of the city. The novel opens with the title The Ferryslip. Why ferry? Immigrants come to NY on
the ferry. So it is an entrance point and port.

This is one point of the social and political agenda of the novel – showing the arrival of immigrants. Non-Anglo immigrants, their
names suggest, names such as Congo, they come from Africa, Asia, and Europe. This is one group of people coming to NY and
looking for better life. Then he shows the distortions of the American Dream followed by the destinies of some of these people.

The title The Ferryslip contains the ominous tragic ending of one of these characters who commits suicide at the end of the novel, not
making it in NY. You know Sinatra’s song If you have made it here, you have made it anywhere? Most of these people, and that is
implicit socio-political criticism by Dos Passos, do not make it, who cannot make it, because the city is filled with too many people
who all want one and the same - riches and glory. Few of them succeed – but they are really few. And even if they succeed, they do it
at a high price.

Apart from the non-American immigrants, he talks also of this idea of the melting pot – showing the reality of that idea.

Its negative side: showing how these immigrants were never accepted, not welcomed, how they are underprivileged, discriminated
against, insulted, live in bad conditions, how it’s extremely difficult for them to get any kind of decent job, the lousy jobs they are
given. – the immigrant story – one segment.

Then, there is a story about Americans, common Americans, ordinary people who come from the hinterland, - one of them is Bud
Korpenning – he becomes almost a representative of the rural America. He might've as well come from Sherwood Anderson's
Winesburg, Ohio – leaving a small town, dreaming of making it to New York, failing, ending as a suicide, again.

The novel has many layers: immigrant stories, immigrant dream of NY, and the American dream, American people coming from
small, rural areas, usually not succeeding.

Then some examples of success, again very dubious ones.

What might be the novel's success stories?  Congo Jake, a French sailor appearing from the very beginning of the novel; immigrant
who became rich during the Prohibition Era through bootlegging; later changes his name to Armand Duval.

Generally, there is a tremendously wide range of different, various characters. Their gender, age, social position, origin – all different;
sometimes their race is also different, although this is not the main issue here. Some of them are given more, some less space. Some
are only briefly mentioned. Who are these characters (s neta):

Ellen Thatcher -When we first meet her, she is a newborn baby: Ellen Thatcher. Later she becomes Ellen Oglethorpe, then Ellen
Herf, and finally Ellen Baldwin. Her friends and acquaintances call her by a variety of names: Ellie, Elaine, Helena, and, yes, Ellen.
The daughter of businessman Ed Thatcher, she is close to her father as a child, and seems to search for a father figure in the numerous
men with whom she has affairs. A successful actress, she abruptly quits the stage. Though loved by more men than she can count, the
only one she seems to truly love in return is Stan Emery, whose baby she has and raises with Jimmy.

Jimmy Herf - Born into wealth, the son of Lily Herf, who dies of a stroke when Jimmy is a boy. He is taken in by his aunt and uncle,
who try to groom him for financial success, but he rebels and turns to journalism, through which he grows into a radical bristling with
anger at capitalist injustice. Hopelessly in love with Ellen, he finally marries her during World War I.

George Baldwin - A struggling lawyer who climbs his way to the district attorney's office and finally to a mayoral race. At heart an
idealist, Baldwin becomes a Reform candidate by the novel's end, turning his back on Gus McNeil and other reactionary friends of
his. Like Jimmy, he is deeply in love with Ellen, and finally wins her hand in marriage after his divorce with his long-estranged wife
Cecily.
One overarching idea or a goal that Dos Passos had here is to present modern life in its totality, life in the lower city in its totality.
To provide the widest possible picture of all segments of society, from the poorest immigrant to the richest businessman, all of
them coming to the same place.

NY at that time was already the largest city in the USA in the early 20 th ct., so it came to be much more than just a city, but the symbol
of an entire lifestyle, and of an entire ideology that it embodied and reflected.

Because of this, we say that this is a plotless novel, in the traditional sense – no traditional plot which has beginning, middle, and
end, and follows the destiny of one hero or heroine, such as George Babbitt. But you have really hundreds of characters where you
simultaneously pay attention to their individual stories, then forget about them, read about somebody else, go to another scene, later
go back to the previous character, all of that taken together creates a network of life in the big city.

The second typical modernist feature is fragmentation. Each chapter is a collision or juxtaposition or a collage of disparate
parts, parts that are in disharmony with one another.

You have one scene, then you jump to another scene, completely different one - on a different location, with completely different
characters, with diff. social position, and life stories, completely diff. situation. Then another, completely diff. from the previous two.
He did it on purpose.

This we call fragmentation. We don't have traditional chapters. You have them on the paper, announced by the headings. But each
chapter has simply a collision of various fragments. – Dakle, imate fragment do fragmenta. Which was also T.S. Eliot's favourite
technique, used in his Wasteland.

You get a juxtaposition of images, of scenes, of situations, of dialogues, newspapers headlines, popular songs etc. The stories of
episodes, of these scenes are normally extremely brief, and seem inconsequential and utterly unrelated. The goal was to present
experience as lively as possible, the totality of experience in an urban setting.

Influence of Expressionism – seen in this method of fragmentation how he was influenced by the similar techniques - collage –
influence of the cinematic montage, by the director Eisenstein. He was influenced by another tradition of painting, namely cubism as
well. And you always have collision and no harmony of disparate things, of images which should suggest to the reader a certain
conclusion, which is not stated there directly, explicitly but is for you to extract it out of the juxtaposition of disparate things. You
have this already in the first title, heading of the first chapter - Arrivals = newcomers coming to NY are presented. Already there you
have to follow 3 or 4 different parts of story revolving around different groups of people.

From the very beginning, depiction of NY is very bleak, very unflattering. The city seems to be unwelcoming to all these desperate,
seemingly, people who come to it guided by their own illusions and dreams of success, social succ., prestige, money, fulfilment in any
way.

Dos Passos was also influenced by another tradition/school in painting – Futurism – futurist painters of that age celebrated
modernity. You have a sub-school within futurism – Italian futurist for example. They depicted in their pictures modern life in urban
settings, dynamics of life in modern city, the fact that people are constantly on the move, the flows of traffic, streams of objects with
lots of colours, dramatic effects – that was the painting of futurism. Something of that you find reflected in Manhattan Transfer.
However, what creates a difference is the message.

They dealt with similar themes, wanted to portray similar things, futurists and Dos Passos in this case, and other modernist writers,
with the crucial difference that the futurists rejoiced in such state of affairs. They wanted to glorify it and celebrate in such paintings
the modern age, its obsession with speed, time, movement, efficiency; they praised dynamics of modern living. Rejoiced in
technologisation, tech. innovations, in the fact that we now have fast trains and subway trains, and rivers of cars going through the
city streets, street lights, traffic lights, neon slogans and headlines and advertisement. And all that you find in their paintings. But they
want to celebrate that environment.

Dos Passos is far less optimistic than futurist painters. With his words, he painted the same themes in his literature, but to the contrary
effect, to draw attention to the reader of negative effects of modernization. He didn't share this optimism. Dos Passos was
partially a painter himself. He was definitely also indebted to expressionism, to the themes of expressionism. With expressionism, he
shared themes, unlike with futurists. He shared their more pessimistic view of the modern city.

To the futurists, the modern city was the epitome of modernity, prosperity. Expressionist didn't see it like that, they painted the
modern city as a modern hell, as a monster, as a place of competition, with all the bad things you can imagine finding there –
brutality, violence, slavery to money, boredom, fatigue, despair, loneliness, social injustice, gender inequality, discrimination of
women, of immigrants, of homosexuals – you name it. So that's mostly his link with expressionism  IN THEMES.
He uses the chapter-headings to indicate locations in NY and each chapter is also preceded by an epigraph. Each chapter has its own
epigraph where he's implicitly sending off the same message – the modern city is the urban hell – and that you cannot expect
anything good when you go there.

E.g. in the epigraph to the chapter Metropolis, NY is explicitly compared to ancient cities like Nineveh (čita se Niniva), Babylon,
Rome. He also makes references to the biblical story of building of the tower of Babel – Babilonska kula.

He uses biblical imagery to provide social and political criticism of the system for which NY stands – namely capitalism.

He wants to present the cyclical view of history, the implication is that just like Niniveh reached its peak, and Babylon, and Rome,
and then failed, the same is going to happen to NY or any other city in the future. And also through this reference to the tower of
Babel implies that NY is the seat of evil, seeds of all corruption.

You have to know the story – why the tower of Babel started to be built. From the Biblical point of view, it's the story about human
arrogance and pride – human beings wanted to be so high that they started to build a tower that high it would soar to heaven itself - to
become equal with God  a variation of the story of Lucifer and his rebellion against God. What did God do? He destroyed the tower
and mixed human languages. According to Bible, humanity spoke only one language. And to punish humanity, God not only
destroyed the tower; he mixed languages to make the communication harder (God strikes back).

Dos Passos isnot religious, but in a modernistic manner, he uses connotations, reminds or alludes. The example of modernist alluding
technique, implicitly or explicitly alludes to the old Biblical story– to suggest certain conclusions about NY of the time.

When is the novel set, NY of which era? It covers a longer period of time  Manhattan Transfer was published in 1925 and covers
the narrated time from 1897 until 1924, a time, which was characterized by progress, industrialization and a new urbanity; from
Gilded Age (late 19th ct.) to Jazz Age (post WWI) (s neta) The time frame also suggests this verticality of the city.

We've already mentioned the austere towers of the city of Zenith form Babbitt. Here you see: no matter whether an author writing in
the period was a realist like Lewis or modernist as Dos Passos, you have these austere towers of steel, concrete, glass – new
materials – the city seems to go upward, soaring to heaven. It's verticality stressed to symbolize its power.

Towers become replacement for churches. Office buildings where the business transactions and money are made, become,
metaphorically speaking, new churches for the new age.

But Dos Passos’ criticism is indirect, mostly implicit, with such connotations. In the Ferryslip (as in many others) chapter we have
already subtle hints of the imminent destruction of NY as such and as a symbol again. But it is the doomed city, just as N., B., Rome,
Alexandria and other iconic cities from the past. The voice which comes from the off– the narrative voice of the undefined narrator
acquires the tone of the prophet of doom – semi-biblical tones.

And then, One More River to Jordan, another biblical allusion, which is just the subheading of one of many other headings in the
novel  these headings are also very telling. You have also various metaphors – something also borrowed from the expressionist
painting – where you have depictions of diff. places, urban settings, and people depicted on these localities in such manners that these
depictions themselves indirectly function as social criticism. The same goes for the expressionist painting.

So he moves away from the realistic depiction of a place, of persons in that place, of the impression which they make on the observer
(the narrative voice whoever he is). In One More River to Jordan, you have the metaphor of the aquarium being used to express social
criticism of the lifestyle of the people at the time, which is the direct expression of the subjectivity of the narrative voice. Lifestyle in
modern society in big urban city is being criticised.

AM – week 5 – ponavljanje

Manhattan Transfer

In general, Manhattan Transfer is among the earliest modernist experimental novels. There are no regular traditional heroes; there is no main
protagonist. Dos Passos' goal was simply to present life in the big city in the early 20th century. It's novel about New York. Dos Passos used the
method of fragmentation  an array of scenes within the single chapter, not only within the entire novel.

Very rapid exchange of scenes, where he uses various techniques. Different storylines intermingle, Dos Passos jumps from one scene to another.
Critics tried even to count at least major scenes gathered in the novel. They counted for about 40 prominent characters. The number of all characters
is bigger. They all contribute to the portrayal of New York. Several sets of characters also represent different social segments of the American
society  urban citizens, rural citizens who come to New York in order to try to success, foreign immigrants, non-European immigrants, European
immigrants, Jewish population etc. People try to find a job, they try to get rich. Some other people try to create an artistic career (like Ellen
Thatcher).

Novel abounds with broken relationships, broken marriages, even violence against the women is present. Also violence against the immigrants and
against the so-called “social other” is present.

Themes create bleak and negative picture of life in the big city. Dos Passos used the principle of simultaneity. He may have taken it from the cinema.
He tries to present several scenes or several situations taking place in New York City at the same time. It’s another modernist feature  all the time
you have to follow several scenes simultaneously; dozens of characters. You get collage of stories which intermingle.

Chapter titles also suggest the theme of the novel. They are usually meant to suggest a modernization, speed, obsession with the technology and
everything that symbolizes modern urban city. Manhattan Transfer  plotless novel.

Dos Passos uses fragmentation, just as T.S. Eliot  no chronological development of the story. There are various parts which all together contribute
to the similar idea.

His goal is to present as much as possible within a novelistic form a totality of experience  total portrayal of life in the big city  influence of the
cinematic montage in the technique of fragmentation.

Dos Passos also presented political messages about social injustice. He was politically active (at least until 1937) and he shared the leftist ideas. You
can find a lot of social activism within the novel.

One of all-pervading themes is social criticism, but he carries out social criticism through these experimental modernist techniques. His social
criticism is very implicit, it’s not explicit, because of the techniques through which he portrays the life, different social classes, showing how the
dreams of people who come to New York usually come to nothing, but how are guided by the distorted ideas of the American dream.  similar to
characters in Great Gatsby

Most of the characters fail not because the negative qualities within themselves but because the system has been arranged in this way  the majority
must fail! Only few characters succeed (capitalist competition). He described lives of people from lower class, poor people who come to NY; both
the Americans, but also various immigrants. Most of them do not make it. They make a living just to survive. We can also notice a contrast, socially
speaking, because there are presentations of extremely successful characters who achieved that at a very high price and presentations of very poor
people.

In the Ferryslip chapter (opening chapter in the novel) social profile of people who come to NYC is presented. They want to make something in their
lives. However, at the very beginning Dos Passos portrays NY as a very cold city, very unwelcoming to those armies of people who come to make a
fortune or to succeed one way or another  modernist feature in the novel.

The influence of painting

One of the influences apart from Cubism is also Futurism (Italian futurists hailed the new age of modernism, technology; of new inventions in their
paintings). To a certain extent Dos Passos reflect the themes of futurists because he also deals with these themes, he also presents technological
advancement, machines, cars, traffic lights, speed and obsession with speed, the lack of time etc. That links him to futurists. But, futurist painters
usually celebrate that and Dos Passos is very critical about that. He doesn’t share their optimism. He seems to be quite pessimistic about all these
developments. But the dynamism (???) is something he shares with the futurists because the novel abounds with the dynamic scenes which are filled
with action, movement, speed etc.

In the novel we can notice very quick descriptions of the very dynamic scenes which usually represent a stream of certain objects in the city.
Sometimes it’s confusing to the reader  complexity of the city but also the complexity of the consciousness.

Then we also talked about the expressionism. This movement influenced Dos Passos  bleak, gloomy description of the city. City monster,
modern hell.

Pay attention to the epigrams at the beginning of the chapters! They often hint at this expressionist theme of the big city as modern hell.  negative
themes prevail.

In the chapter One More River to Jordan people are described in a very peculiar manner  negative attitude towards life in the city.

Dos Passos combines expressionist techniques with his social activism. He criticizes the alienation of people, entrapment into their own inner worlds,
between the mental walls that they have imposed upon themselves; mutual mistrust of people.

Through the plate glass the Cosmopolitan Cafe full of blue and green opal rifts of smoke looks like a muddy aquarium; faces blob whitely round
the tables like illassorted fishes. (From the chapter One More River to Jordan)  This description is very expressionist.

In some sections of Metropolis chapter narrative voice almost acquires a prophetic tone, where he hints at the destruction of NY sometimes in the
future.  It’s a doomed city, in the same manner in which Rome, Babylon etc. turned out to be doomed cities.

Emphasis is on the verticality of city. Skyscrapers and office buildings become modern substitutes for the churches of the earlier period, where,
implicitly of course, Passos seems to suggest that the profit making has become the religion of the new age. Religion which is worshiped in very high
and vertical office buildings. The capitalism is then also implicitly brought into connection with the biblical stories such as the story of the building
of the Tower of Babel and the reasons for its destruction. Of course, he uses this only figuratively. He uses religious tones not for religious purposes,
but he uses them just as metaphors. He is not religious in any traditional sense.

Passos shows city which is in motion, but at the same time this motion doesn’t contribute to any solution. It’s a city without resolution. Despite very
energetic action taking place all the time in NY, this action doesn’t bring any resolution for social problems. Life is seen as very repetitive and
empty.

At the same time there are also more concrete themes which are integrated into this one. One of the more concrete themes connected with this one is
Passos’ social criticism of all kinds of hostility of ‘social other’; hostility towards women; ethnic discrimination; discrimination of people who
belong to the different social background.

Another all-pervading theme in the novel is the hostility of the entire society against the immigrants. These immigrants were never accepted, not
welcomed, they are underprivileged and discriminated, they do the dirtiest jobs etc. Passos turns the idea of melting pot upside down.

Passos also shows different kinds of ghettos, lik jewish ghettos etc. Racial issue is somewhere in the background. Images of deaths, suicides, a lot of
garbage, very poor parts of NYC etc. are presented.  connections between this novel and the painting The Burning City.  SOLITARY HUMAN
INDIVIDUAL, ENTRAPPED INTO HIS OWN GRIEF AND SORROW. ISOLATION AND ALIENATION.

Individuals are isolated and fragmented, just like Anderson’s protagonists in Winesburg Ohio.

Passos explores the limits of American dream, sometimes very sarcastically. The distortion of original idea of the American dream. In the early 20 th
century the American dream as an idea is robbed of any idealistic overtones. It’s reduced only on the chasing of money. American dream for most
characters, ironically, is denied. All these people are, implicitly, presented as victims of that ideology of the American dream. They all come to NY
believing in this formula of success that the sky only is a limit. For most of them it’s denied in a brutal way. Social gap between the rich and the poor
is emphasized. Most of protagonists fail in their search for a better life.

Those who achieve something, they do in on a high price. Dos Passos encourages the reader’s social criticism. He emphasizes social differences,
social gap, discrimination and even social chaos. So, he is very negative about the modern society, not only about the NYC, but generally about the
whole western society.

He implies the idea that there is no resolution. The beginning of the novel equals to its ending. There is no progress in the novel in a traditional sense,
not only in the sense of plot line. Individuals seem to be moving in the circles.

Characters themselves are presented as semi-caricatures (another modernist element). They are incomplete, distorted, fragmented figures. Very
empty people on the inside. Sometimes they are animal-like. Passos uses again expressionist techniques from painting to compare certain people to
certain animals.

There is nothing romantic about this novel, nothing idyllic.  modernist feature. The ending of the novel, unlike traditional literature does not bring
any resolution. Meaningless lives of people just go on. What causes the downfall of these characters isn’t something which depends on characters
themselves that much as it depends on the very system in which they live  CAPITALISM. Passos shows how the American dream has been
reduced to its materialistic version and how this materialistic version of the American dream has become a sort of formula that most Americans and
non-Americans have learned. They believed in that idea, and they came to NYC to realize that idea. They are driven by their personal ambition,
regardless of their origin. They become very conformist, they accept the social norms without questioning. They start to imitate those who have
already succeeded.

ALSO: SURGE FOR THE PROFESSIONAL SUCCESS, SEARCH FOR SEXUAL (UN)FULFILLMENT, SEXUAL MANIPULATION BEING
SHOWED, BROKEN MARRIAGES, HOMOSEXUALITY, ADULTERIES, RAPES, PHYSICAL AND VERBAL VIOLENCE, GANGSTERISM!