Grim Death

Klopsch, Nadja: The American Dream in 20th Century American Drama, GRIN VERLAG, November 2009, Besorgungstitel - vorauss. Lieferzeit 3-5 Tage. ISBN: 3640471105
Every year thousands of people from all over the world migrate to the United States of America. For most people escaping war, poverty, ecological destruction and other dangers, the United States constitute a safe harbor where their hopes of a better life come true. Ever since the settling of what is today the US, people came to live in the New World and to lead a better life than in their countries of origin. The hopes connected with this better and happier live are all joined in the concept of the American Dream, which became one of most powerful creation myths of a country. People migrating to the United States have certain dreams or hopes of a better life but in reality these promises often turn out to be not as strong as people originally believed them to be. Only a very small amount of people achieve the famous idea of rising from rags to riches whereas many people fail to attain their goal of a better life. Hence it is not surprising that the American culture not only is shaped by the glorious American Dream but also by the grim truth of its failing or being flunked. Of course, such an important concept deeply influences American culture. Continuously the ideas of the American Dream can be found in television, movies, literature, and arts for instance in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby or Gabriele Muccino's film The Pursuit of Happiness. This paper aims to examine the presentment and importance of the American Dream for twentieth century American drama. Drama in general was selected because of its importance as one of the three main literary genres. Temporal narrowing in form of 20th century was chosen because drama as a literary genre is characterized by experimentation with form and content in this period. Furthermore, some of the best known 20th century American dramas employ the American Dream as a central theme, for example Susan Glaspell's Trifles (1916), Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman (1949), Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun (1959) and Edward Albee successive plays The Sandbox (1959) and The American Dream (1960). At first, a closer look is taken at what the American Dream actually is. Afterwards some constituents of the overall American Dream are distinguished and their prominence in some of most popularly known dramas of twentieth century American literature is extracted.

NEUBUCH! 2009. 84 S. 210 mm 210 mm x 148 mm x 5 mm; Akademische Schriftenreihe, Bd. V139254

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Dickens, Charles: Dombey and Son. Complete with 62 illustrations by F. Barnard. Mit einem Vorwort des Verfassers. London, Chapman and Hall, no date, ca. 1894.
Befriedigender Zustand. Einband gedunkelt. Buchrücken am Fuß mit einem kleinen Ausriß (2 cm). Seiten papierbedingt leicht gebräunt. The cover is darkened. Satisfying Condition. Aus der Bibliothek der Gräfin Ledebur. - Dombey and Son is a novel by the Victorian author Charles Dickens. It was first published in monthly parts between October 1846 and April 1848 with the full title Dealings with the Firm of Dombey and Son: Wholesale, Retail and for Exportation. Dickens started writing the book in Lausanne, Switzerland, but travelled extensively during the course of its writing, returning to England to begin another work before completing Dombey and Son. ... Critical appreciation: Dombey and Son was conceived first and foremost as a continuous novel. A letter from Dickens to Forster on 26 July 1846 shows the major details of the plot and theme already substantially worked out. According to the critic George Gissing, 'Dombey was begun at Lausanne, continued at Paris, completed in London, and at English seaside places; whilst the early parts were being written, a Christmas story, The Battle of Life, was also in hand, and Dickens found it troublesome to manage both together. That he overcame the difficulty-that, soon after, we find him travelling about England as member of an amateur dramatic company-that he undertook all sorts of public engagements and often devoted himself to private festivity-Dombey going on the while, from month to month-is matter enough for astonishment to those who know anything about artistic production. But such marvels become commonplaces in the life of Charles Dickens.'[5] George Gissing, Chapter VII: Dombey and Son, The Immortal Dickens, London: Cecil Palmer, 1925] As with most of Dickens' work, a number of socially significant themes are to be found in this book. In particular the book deals with the then-prevalent common practice of arranged marriages for financial gain. Other themes to be detected within this work include child cruelty (particularly in Dombey's treatment of Florence), familial relationships, and as ever in Dickens, betrayal and deceit and the consequences thereof. Another strong central theme, which the critic George Gissing elaborates on in detail in his 1925 work The Immortal Dickens,[6] is that of pride and arrogance, of which Paul Dombey senior is the extreme exemplification in Dickens' work. Gissing makes a number of points about certain key inadequacies in the novel, not the least that Dickens's central character is largely unsympathetic and an unsuitable vehicle and also that after the death of the young Paul Dombey the reader is somewhat estranged from the rest of what is to follow. He notes that 'the moral theme of this book was Pride-pride of wealth, pride of place, personal arrogance. Dickens started with a clear conception of his central character and of the course of the story in so far as it depended upon that personage; he planned the action, the play of motive, with unusual definiteness, and adhered very closely in the working to this well-laid scheme'. However, he goes on to write that,'Dombey and Son is a novel which in its beginning promises more than its progress fulfils' and gives the following reasons why: " Impossible to avoid the reflection that the death of Dombey's son and heir marks the end of a complete story, that we feel a gap between Chapter XVI and what comes after (the author speaks of feeling it himself, of his striving to "transfer the interest to Florence") and that the narrative of the later part is ill-constructed, often wearisome, sometimes incredible. We miss Paul, we miss Walter Gay (shadowy young hero though he be); Florence is too colourless for deep interest, and the second Mrs. Dombey is rather forced upon us than accepted as a natural figure in the drama. Dickens's familiar shortcomings are abundantly exemplified. He is wholly incapable of devising a plausible intrigue, and shocks the reader with monstrous improbabilities such as all that portion of the denouement in which old Mrs. Brown and her daughter are concerned. A favourite device with him (often employed with picturesque effect) was to bring into contact persons representing widely severed social ranks; in this book the "effect" depends too often on "incidences of the boldest artificiality," as nearly always we end by neglecting the story as a story, and surrendering ourselves to the charm of certain parts, the fascination of certain characters.'[7] ^ George Gissing, Chapter VII: Dombey and Son, The Immortal Dickens, London: Cecil Palmer, 1925] ... The growth of the railways: A strong theme is the destruction and degradation (of people and places) caused by industrialisation, illustrated in particular by the building of the new railway through Camden Town (assumed to represent the London and Birmingham Railway constructed between 1833 and 1837). This reflects Dickens's apparent antipathy towards railways[citation needed], later reinforced by his involvement in a train crash in 1865. Soon after this incident he wrote two short stories (Mugby Junction and The Signal-Man) which projected a morbid view of the railways. Final thoughts: Gissing refers to Dickens's instinctive genius for reflecting the thoughts and morals of the common man in his writing. He observes that the author was in constant communication with Forster, " ... as to the feeling of his readers about some proposed incident or episode; not that he feared, in any ignoble sense, to offend his public, but because his view of art involved compliance with ideals of ordinary simple folk. He held that view as a matter of course. Quite recently it has been put forth with prophetic fervour by Tolstoy, who cites Dickens among the few novelists whose work will bear this test. An instinctive sympathy with the moral (and therefore the artistic) prejudices of the everyday man guided Dickens throughout his career, teaching him when, and how far, he might strike at things he thought evil, yet never defeat his prime purpose of sending forth fiction acceptable to the multitude. Himself, in all but his genius, a representative Englishman of the middle-class, he was able to achieve this task with unfailing zeal and with entire sincerity.[11] " George Gissing, Chapter VII: Dombey and Son, The Immortal Dickens, London: Cecil Palmer, 1925] Karl Smith, in his turn, gives his specific reasons for what makes Dombey and Son - and the works of Dickens as a whole - worth reading again and again. He observes that this is based in part on Dickens's 'recognition that solemn themes require humour and verbal vigour to accompany and complement them' and goes on to conclude: "Grim psychological realism, social commentary, comic absurdity and symbolic transcendence are here brought together more than in any previous novel with the possible exception of Oliver Twist. Dombey and Son not only prepares the ground for Dickens's later masterpieces, but demands to be enjoyed for its own energy and richness.[12] ^ Dombey and Son, Introduction, Karl Smith, Wordsworth Classics] wikipedia--wiki-Dombey_and_Son Aus: wikipedia-

Household edition. x, 449 pages with sixty-two Illustrations by F. Barnard. 423 Seiten mit zahlreichen schwarz-weißen Ilustrationen in Holzstich im Text und auf Tafeln. 25,5 x 19,5 cm. Rotes Leinen mit goldgeprägten Rücken- und Deckeltiteln, blindgeprägten Deckelverzierungen, farbigen Vorsätzen und Kopffarbschnitt.

[KW: Englische Literatur des 19. Jahrhunderts, Literaturtheorie, Englische Literatur, Anglistik, Englische Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft, Britain, Literaturgeschichte, Literaturwissenschaften, Geschichte, Gesellschaft, Politik, Originalsprache, Book is written in english, englisch, englische Sprache, Roman, Romane, Prosa, Literatur, Gesellschaftsroman, Liebesgeschichte, Familienroman, Weltliteratur, prose, literature, fiction and poetry, society novel, love story, family saga, world literature, Illustrationen, Illustrierte Ausgaben, Illustrierte Bücher, illustrated]

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Henry James: Aspern Papers and Other Stories, OXFORD WORLD'S CLASSICS, März 2009 ISBN: 0199538557
An unscrupulous critic, determined to get his hands on the private papers of a great poet, finds himself duelling with the grim old lady who was once the poet's mistress and muse. Aspern's lost world of beauty and romance still seems to hand in the glamorous air of Venice, but the price of admission turns out to involve another party, the old woman's unmagical niece. What exactly is Aspern's admirer prepared to pay In the other stories collected here - 'The Private Life', 'The Middle Years', and 'The Death of the Lion' - the elusive figure of the writer again arouses passions of pursuit and dispute among rival admirers and patrons. James never wrote more pointedly about the pleasures and pains of the writer, or more wittily about the public that seeks to profit from him.

NEW 197X17X129 196 mm x 129 mm x 19 mm

[KW: Fiction / Short Stories (single author)]

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Trent Jamieson: Business of Death A Steven de Selby novel, ORBIT, 091 ISBN: 1841498610
Reaping - it's a grim job but someone's got to do it. Welcome to the dark world of Stephen de Selby in this larger than life omnibus edn containing DEATH MOST DEFINITE, MANAGING DEATH and THE BUSINESS OF DEATH.

NEW 2011 200 mm x 128 mm x 45 mm

[KW: Amerikanische Belletristik / Science Fiction, Englische Bücher / Belletristik / Fantasy, Fiction / Fantasy / General]

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