Modern America: John Dos Passos' Vision of America Analytical Essay by Top Papers

The paper looks at what appears to be Dos Passos' over-riding perspective on the America of his time; the paper also delineates the kinds of people Dos Passos seems eager to write about and how he characterizes these people in his work. Finally, the paper ends by outlining the manner in which the text may be described as expressing modernism as it was understood by the writers of Dos Passos' generation. In the final analysis, the text aims to show the wide cross-section of humanity which could be found in American society - with special attention being paid to how some had a great deal while others had scarcely anything at all. The paper also shows how the text is clearly penned from an unapologetically Marxist perspective and captures Dos Passos' cynicism and his pessimism about the prospects of American society ever evolving into something more egalitarian, less rapacious, and more committed to social justice. The paper concludes that Dos Passos' vision of America is that of a land that traps some people in grinding poverty and despair just as readily and just as effectively as any authoritarian regime found anywhere else.