Theodore Dreiser

ﴪ✍ PRACTICAL WORK.

Page 189, questions

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1. – Theodore Dreiser was born in the family of a strict Catholic, narrow-minded and despotic. His father distasted religion to the end of his days. His parents weren’t rich. At the age of 16 Theodore left home and to Chicago, where he was managed to go to the University. The boy had to pay for the University, but he didn’t have money and then, Theodor began writing.
2. – The publishers didn’t want to publish Theodor Dreiser’s books because they were admitted “immoral”.
3. – Here are the most famous works by Dreiser:

“An American Tragedy” (1900y.) – his 1^stnovel

”The Titan” (1914)

The stories show the way in which the wealth of big capitalists is made

“The Stoic” (was published only after Theodor’s death in 1947)

“The financier” (1912)

1. – He wanted to work in trade.
2. – As Mr. Knickle said, he didn’t have a job to offer the boy, but Clyde was offered to work as a bell-boy.
3. – Clyde was advised to go to a hotel to work as a bell-boy.
4. – He had to go to a hotel and ask for Mr. Squires, who might give him some job.
5. – So…. To be honest, Clyde’s behavior led to what it led – he didn’t get a job. The guy behaved in a impolite way and wasn’t really confident, what’s important while your speech with an employer.
6. – To speak mildly, the talk was like a dialog between friends, who became enemies sometimes ago and I thought Clyde was a little bit tipsy, because his speech was impolite, not connected and also meaningless, like a speech of a person, who is ill by fever.

Page 193, answers

1. – Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald, 1 of the most outstanding American writers of the lost generation.
2. – He tried to join to the most fashionable and respectable students’ clubs and cafeterias.
3. – His literary career started at the University. He wrote pieces for the University magazine “Tiger”.
4. – All his life he re regretted the fact that he spent his time in service in American training camps and was never sent to the war in Europe.
5. – Fitzgerald is famous for such works as “The Great Gatsby”, “This side of Paradise”, “Tender is the Night” and “The Beautiful and Damned”.
6. – The “Lost Generation” was the generation that came of age during World War 1. This time gives us these names: James Joyce, Scott Fitzgerald, T.C. Eliot; Djuna Barnes, Waldo Pierce, Henry Miller, Isadora Duncan and others. Also, we can see some of the World famous composers. Here they go: Sergei Prokofiev, George Gershwin, Aaron Copland and others.
7. – Jay Gatsby had always dreamed about the World glory and hills of wealth – he wanted to become very rich and famous. Nevertheless, his dreams didn’t come true – he spent all his life in the solitude and was rejected by the social classes he had always wanted to belong to. He always was an outcast every time and everywhere… .

Page 198, answers

1. – Ernest Hemingway was one of the greatest American writers of his age. He was born in Oak Park, Illinois, in 1899, in the family of a doctor.
2. – At school he was a successful pupil. He wrote poetry and prose to the school literary magazine and edited the school newspaper.
3. – In 1918 he joined the army.
4. – To get the material for his future stories and novels Hemingway travelled all over the world.
5. – “Farewell to arms”, a protest against war is Hemingway’s masterpiece. It was published in 1929 and made the author famous.
6. – Hemingway’s last work, “The Old Man and the Sea” (1952), was mentioned as one of his best works.
7. – At school he was a successful pupil. He wrote poetry and prose to the school literary magazine and edited the school newspaper. During his childhood, Ernest was a member of the swimming team, played football and learned to box. Hemingway wrote poems and prose for the school magazine “Tiger”!!! He became an incredible sportsman. He tried to join the army twice, but only in 1918 he could do it. To get the material for his future stories and novels Hemingway travelled all over the world. “Farewell to arms”, a protest against war is Hemingway’s masterpiece. It was published in 1929 and made the author famous. Hemingway’s last work, “The Old Man and the Sea” (1952), was mentioned as one of his best works.
8. – Hemingway was awarded a silver medal by the Italian Government for his job in American Red Cross ambulances on the Italian front.
9. – No, he didn’t consider himself brave and fearless person. He thought he got the medal because he was an American.
10. – He was detached because of the serious injury he got on the War.
11. – He didn’t believe in courage, nevertheless he was very brave. Why!? Because he didn’t fall into a suicidal depression after his wife’s death and continued fight in his army with the enemy.

Page 202, answers

1. – William Faulkner, one of the leading 20^th – century novelists, was born in New Albany, Mississippi, in declined aristocratic family. The author was in the 11^th grade of the Oxford High School when the First World War broke out.
2. – His disappointment at missing the experience of combat is reflected in several of his early stories.
3. – Faulkner began to write soon after the war.
4. – His 1^st published work, a volume of poems entitled “The Marble Faun”, appeared in 1924.
5. – He encouraged him to write “Soldier’s Pay”. It was published in 1926.
6. – He showed the tragedy of the war generation returning to the piece time life crippled both physically and spiritually.
7. – The latter initiated the theme of the disintegration of the aristocratic South to which Faulkner returned repeatedly throughout his literary career.
8. – His work called “Sanctuary” (1931), a story of violence and murder, which he wrote solely to make money, created a sensation and brought its author financial independence.
9. – Faulkner belongs to the Southern School of American Writers.
10. – His attitude to it is dual.

Page 205, answers

1. – Jerome David Salinger was born in 1919 bin New York. His father was a prosperous importer of ham and cheese. The boy grew up with a sister who was 8 years older than he.
2. – He didn’t do well at school, so his parents put him in a military academy.
3. – The 1^st story he published was “The Young Men”, in 1940.
4. – During the Second World War he spent 4 years in the army and was sent to Europe.
5. – The 1^st story he published was “The Young Men”, in 1940. In 1943, while Salinger was in France, the American magazine “Saturday Evening Post” published his story “The Varioni Brothers”.
6. – Holden – the main character of the novel – was very afraid to become like all adults. Thrice he was excelled from the college for an awful academic progress. He was irritated by the thought of being like everyone adult an office-rat and also distasted those thoughts.

Holden reads a lot and searches there, in the books answers to his questions. He told about himself: “I’m a very uneducated person”. He was a shy and easy offensive person. Sometimes even he became a rude box and could tell you something to make you cry. (I think it’s a protection from the society. I’m also a really rude person. To me, wolves, dogs and my mom is the best society in the World that could ever be!!!!!)

1. – In my opinion he didn’t understand what had happened to James Castle.

Page 212

1. – Eugene O’Neill was born in New York in the family of an actor.
2. – From his childhood the boy used to accompany his father on theatrical tours. Much of his lifetime between 1907-1913 was spent in travelling.
3. – Back home he wrote his 1^st play «The Web» (1913-1914)
4. – In 1916, Eugene O’Neill joined a group of artists and writers who banded together under the name of The Provincetown Players and his one-act play “Bound East for Cardiff” (1916) was 1^st performed in Provincetown.
5. – In 1923 he became one of the founders of the Theatre Guiled which produced most of his plays.
6. – With the production of “Beyond the Horizon” in 1920 (Pulitzer Prize), Eugene O’Neill won wide popularity.
7. – In the 1920s, Eugene O’Neill stood close to the writers who throw light upon the moral frustration of the society.
8. – By the end of the 1920s, Eugene O’Neill got interested in Sigmund Freud’s psycho-analysis.
9. – Eugene O’Neill was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1936. Three of his plays were all produced posthumously, in 1956, 1963, 1957 respectively.
10. – Eugene O’Neill was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1936. Three of his plays were all produced posthumously, in 1956, 1963, 1957 respectively.

Page 221

1. – Lillian Hellman is a well-known American playwright. She was born in New Orleans in the family of a businessman. In her school-years she read much and had a short career as an actress.
2. – She tried to write short stories, reviewed books and sometimes got some jobs from publishers.
3. – She found a job as a play reader for a film company.
4. – At that time she met Hammett, a well-known journalist and writer of detective novels, who became her best-friend and teacher in writing.
5. – Two of Hellman’s stories were published in 1933 in a literary newspaper edited by a number of well-known American writers: Theodore Dreiser and other.
6. – In 1936 she visited Spain.
7. – She wrote a huge amount world-famous plays. The play “The Little Foxes”, written in 1939, was a great success.
8. – He left money to Ben and Oscar.
9. – Because she wanted much from life. she wanted good things
10. – They fought for the bounds.
11. – Leo works a clerk.
12. – The best proves are their speech and they every time were talking about money and also their answers were sharp and showed their tender feelings to wealth, gold, money and glory.

“Was the major brave? Why do you think so?”

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I suppose everyone knows Hemingway’s short story called “In another country”. I don’t wanna talk about the condense of the story of my attitude to it. I’d like to answer the question “was the major brave?”

What does it mean -“To be brave”? It is not only to run at the enemies being surrounded with the bullets. Absolutely it doesn’t mean to cheat the final exams at the University.

To be brave can also mean not to commit suicide in any trouble. When you face a problem, you don’t cut your wrists and don’t eat deadly amount of pills. A brave person will solve the problem or, like the major did calm down and after some day of crying continue to live. He didn’t believe in courage, nevertheless he was very brave. Why!? Because he didn’t fall into a suicidal depression after his wife’s death and continued fight in his army with the enemy.

Anyway, braveness has its own meaning for everyone. And what does it mean for you?