1920s Influence On American Literature

Alleynia Alvarado

Dr LaChandra Fitzgerald

English 3B

16 May 2016

How the 1920s influenced American literature

The 1920s was an exciting historical era that was filled with music,art,parties and an economic boom, many of these factors influenced many talented people to create wonderful masterpieces that to this day we are able to enjoy. We are able to enjoy works from F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Aaron Douglass and many more. World War II had just ended, the whole nation was happy, all people wanted to do was enjoy eachother’s company and party. Many men had returned from being overseas after fighting for their country. The 1920s was a big change from what people were used to, women were now able to vote, jazz was introduced, the

Woolcott was a critic and commentator for New York Magazine, a well read magazine at the time, people looked up to Woolcott and valued his opinions.

The Harlem Renaissance started in Harlem, New York it was filled with art, music literature, dance, it also redefined African Americans. The Harlem Renaissance was one of many important movements for African Americans, this movement expressed views never before seen by anyone but African Americans. African Americans started expressing what they felt through their writing and works, they would write poems, music and illustrate of what surrounded them. Langston Hughes was a poet that wrote I, too, sing America “ I too sing America, They send me to eat in the kitchen when company comes , I laugh, And eat well, And grow strong.” After Hughes wrote this poem, Americans can now see that African Americans are embarrassed but will overcome and become stronger than ever before. This poem influenced many other African Americans to also write about their experiences that were happening in their everyday life. Also during The

The writers changed what was then modern writing to make it more realistic, they put into words what was going on around them, they also added profanity, sexuality. Profanity and sexuality were very much a taboo subject, these writers took risks in writing this new form of literature into their work. F. Scott Fitzgerald was one of those authors that liked to push the limits, The Great Gatsby to this day is still read by many people, the book involves money, women, adultery , and parties, many things that represent the 1920s. Ernest Hemingway wrote The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway was an author that gained much fame in the 1920s, in The Sun Also Rises is about a man that drinks, parties and occasionally works. Both these authors showed us in their work of how people wanted to live their life in the 1920s, they wanted to party, have money and occasionally work. The Lost Generation authors didn’t experience that way of life, they wrote about it, they wrote exactly what Americans wanted and were dreaming about in the