Nathanel West

Paper Summary:

This paper is an in-depth examination of American novelist, Nathanel West. The author gives us a brief biography of Mr. West, who was part of the first generation of American authors who split their time evenly between New York and Hollywood. According to the author, "The Day of the Locust," Mr. West's most famous novel is a reflection of his view of the American family at the time. The author uses examples from the novel to show the parallels between these characters and West's own life in Hollywood.

From the Paper:

"Hackett already has a sense that the world he lives in is spiritually dead, but he cannot help dreaming that he may rise above it. Bit-part actress Faye Greener's entire life is constructed around Hollywood fantasy without any sense of irony. This is true even of the parts of her life that are not lived upon the screen. "One evening they talked about what she did with herself when she wasn't working as an extra. She told him that she often spent the whole day making up stories she would go over them in her mind, as though they were a pack of cards "While she admitted that her method was too mechanical for the best results and that it was better to slip into a dream naturally, she said that any dream was better than no dream" (104) This provides a metaphor for the entire manufactured film industry. Hollywood, West suggests, fashions unnatural and mechanical dreams people consume because they have no other identities."

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