Hope in "Gods Go Begging"

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses Alfredo Vea's novel, "Gods Go Begging" that presents many vignettes and interrelated stories in a strange canvas of the real and the imaginary, that force the reader to provide his own definition of the world in the wake of the war in Vietnam. The paper discusses the plots and characters of the book and what the reader can take away from the novel as a whole.

From the Paper:

"In their own way, these various characters are like characters in Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson: grotesques. But Anderson was not quite right in his belief that these various characters had become grotesques because they had seized upon some single and incomplete truth (Anderson, 23-24), but because of their inability to express themselves. (Cowley, Introduction," 14) In much the same way, Vea's characters in Gods Go Begging suffer from a similar inability to express themselves. Trying, failing, trying again, they often lash out against whatever is in their path, sometimes attacking the very things they love. (Vea, 312)"

Sample of Sources Used:

• Anderson, Sherwood. Winesburg, Ohio. New York, New York: Penguin Book, 1960.
• Apocalypse Now. Francis Ford Coppola, director; Marlon Brando, actor; Martin Sheen, actor. Distributed by United Artists, 1979.
• Barber, Samuel. Adagio for strings; School for scandal. Performed by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, David Zinman conducting. London, England: Argo, 1992.
• Beckett, Thomas. "Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean." In The American Heritage Songbook, Ruth Lloyd, Norman Lloyd, editors. New York, New York: American Heritage Pub. Co., 1969.
• Blake, William. "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" Poems. New York, New York: T. Y. Crowell & Co., 1964.

More papers on Hope in "Gods Go Begging":

• Term Paper # 134065 : "Gods Go Begging": The Vietnam Era"
• Analytical Essay # 64979 : "A Hope in the Unseen" by Ron Suskind"
• Term Paper # 140805 : "The Lived Experience of Hope in Loss and Grief"

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