Art and Protest in the 20th Century

Paper Summary:

"Let us Now Praise Famous Men", James Agee and Walker Evans' study of three tenement families living in 1930s dustbowl America, is both a failure and a great artistic work. The paper explains how the book is a work of art because it invested dignity and the worthiness of being a photographic and journalistic subject to some of the poorest and least recognized members of American society. The Gudgers, the Woods, and the Ricketts are respectively given the same visual and prosaic poetry, honor, and valorizing treatment as might be conferred upon President Roosevelt himself. It points out however, that because of the limits of the photographic and written medium, even the reality of the medium somewhat limits the portrayal, and renders exotic their poverty and privation.

From the Paper:

"It is for this reason that the book is a failure-a failure that Agee set out to commit, as he admits in his opening. "It seems to be curious, not to say obscene and thoroughly terrifying," he begins in his introduction, that "an organ of journalism," of which he and the photographer Evans were an instrument, could pry into the lives of defenseless human beings, "in the name of science and of honest journalism. (7-8) He knows his goal of conveying dignity to the farmers will fail, but he will try. And "If I bore you, that is that." (9) In other words, Agee writes, he will attempt to show reality, in all of the glory of the boredom of human, daily life, rather than inscribing the journalistic question of 'what is the story?' onto the truth of representation."

More papers on Art and Protest in the 20th Century:

• Cause and Effect Essay # 119761 : "The Effect of War on 20th Century Visual Art"
• Essay # 14974 : "Reform and Change In the 20th Century"
• Comparison Essay # 6986 : "The Differences between Iran and Turkey in the 20th Century"

APA Citation:

MLA Citation: