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Those Most Nearly Touched: Social Criticism in American Literature. One
of the most influential critics of the social problems in ...
... When he is in "one of those states" (as Mrs. Pearce, his ... cashier for a firm of land
agents for nearly four and ... in 1916 and is one of Shaw's most popular plays. ...
... an inflammatory issue, raising objections from those who believe ... private-school quotas
so that nearly 50 percent ... One of the most important factors which permit ...
... It originates, nearly always, in speech ... consists of both coined words (blurb, whoopee)
and those with new ... the given paragraph the list of the most commonly used ...
... and advertising arose to help make those decisions. ... The most important invention
was the computer in 1946. ... One cannot deny the fact that nearly everybody is ...
Submitted by jjcole on September 8, 2005
Category: Social Issues
Words: 1498 | Pages: 6
Views: 294
Popularity Rank: 38,664
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One of the most influential critics of the social problems in American history was Civil Rights spokesperson W.E.B. DuBois, who believed that "Honest and earnest criticism from those whose interests are most nearly touched--criticism of writers by readers, of government by those governed, of leaders by those led--this is the soul of democracy and the safeguard of modern society." One of the leading vehicles of such criticism since the beginning of the United States of America was literature. Like Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, American literature molded its history by changing social perspectives with authors' voices. Stowe's character changed popular American society's views on the morality of permanent servitude, and other writers have introduced new views into mainstream thought by providing social criticism of their generations through characters' perspectives. Three such writers were Stephen Crane, Flannery O'Connor, and Hunter S. Thompson. Crane's criticism of the nature of war, O'Connor's criticism of gender, racism and religion, and Thompson's criticism of the deterioration of American values were all voices of American generations and essential elements of the evolution of modern American society.
Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage was a novel that exploited an underlying irony of the nature of the American Civil War and war itself, as it was the "first non-romantic novel of the Civil War to attain widespread popularity." Rather than depicting soldiers fighting for some noble and important cause, like literature of the American Revolution, Crane painted what seemed to be "loosely cohering incidents" that demystified and reshaped his generation's views on warfare. War was not dignified; it was "hard stuff. Men ran away howling. Bodies were strewn and torn. War, went the cliché, was hell." Crane created characters and scenes that highlighted the problems of his America's popular opinion of war for "those whose interests are most...
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