Classical English Literature - Essay Sample

The American playwright novelist and activist "James Baldwin" often explored themes about race class or sexual intricacies in the Western world and most remarkably did this in respect of the United States mid-twentieth century. His most notable work includes "Notes of a Native Son" which was a book that contained his collection of essays, "If Beale Could Talk (adapted into the 2018 film) and "Giovanni's Room". Most of his work intertwined with the key political events of the time that is (the civil rights and gay liberation movements). This essay will entail focusing on Baldwin and Didion essays that speak about the society and people furthermore it will talk about Erdrich and White stories and their experiences connects to the places they set their essays. One of the essays that Baldwin wrote in 1960 “Fifth Avenue Uptown” clearly studies the need to look and try to eradicate the poverty witnessed in neighborhoods of people of color. In the essay he continues to talk about the plight of the black man in America while African Americans migrated from Southern states they resulted in settling in poor neighborhoods outside the cities (For Example Harlem outside New York City) where higher rates of poverty, drug use, and crime were reported. Additionally, poor or lack of amenities was witnessed in these neighborhoods while ironically the lack of their economic prosperity made them expensive to access (Baldwin, 1990).

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The eighty-five-year-old novelist and essayist “Joan Didion” rose to prominence in the 1960s by writing the truth about the counterculture and the Hollywood lifestyle that had been popular during the era of the civil rights movement. In one of her essays, "Marrying Absurd" she criticizes the wedding industry in Las Vegas analyzing how ridiculous it had become, in her short story Didion depicts how the wedding industry in this region is cheap making her audience reflect how that made a mockery of the consecration of marriage. Didion relates several sarcastic skills to make and maintain her satiric tone to effectively convey one thing to her audience and something entirely different to the wedding community in Las Vegas.

The essay “Once More to the Lake” by E. B. White depicts him going up to visit a resort near a lake where his family had vacationed when he was younger. White studies the relationship one can have with their son and also explores the power memory can wield plus the inevitable notion of mortality. He recalls seeing things and feeling the same way he felt as when he was a child but one thing White observes is how the lake is now louder from motorboats. In Whites' reflection he cannot distinguish the past to the present, starts to imagine how his father would pick up a 'bait box' while he did the same in the presence of his son. He suggests that playtime in the summer between families represent the joy and peace in one’s life.

In the literary essay “Beneath My House” by Louise Erdrich it talks about a day when the author rescues a cat from beneath her house even though she despises cats, going as far as to narrate that her maternal instincts kicked in when she heard the kitten cry. The crying kitten makes the author do anything in her power to rescue the little kitten. Erdrich in her narration uses a lot of description and personification to enlighten her audience on the theme of giving birth by how she personifies and symbolizes the house to be like a mother talking about how the “floor cries as she walks”.

Work Cited

Baldwin, James. Fifth avenue, uptown. Perfection Learning Corporation, 1990. Retrieved from http://www.bdlcommunications.com/CityLit/Esquire.pdf