Thurber And Wolfe's Writings example essay topic

James Thurber and Thomas Wolfe were both great American authors. They both wrote during the Modern period of writing. Though their writings are very different many of them contain the same elements. The modernist movement called for bold experimentation and a wholesale rejection of traditional themes and styles. Thurber and Wolfe's writings are far from the old, traditional styles of writing. Their writing shows the switch from the previous period of Realism to the new period of the Moderns.

James Thurber and Thomas Wolfe lived different lives, in different places, and wrote in different styles but they still share some similarities. The Moderns really began after World War one or the Great War. This changed the American voice in fiction. Idealism turned into cynicism and America lost its innocence. The Stock Market Crash caused the Great Depression and that caused a more depressing kind of writing. This style calls for bold experimentation, and a sweeping rejection of all traditional themes.

American soon became known as a beautiful, bountiful, and rewarding land. The independent person that relies only on himself was shown to have the ultimate triumph. The new writers were skeptical of the New England Puritan tradition and the courtesy, which had been central to the literary. The center of American Literature had finally shifted from New England.

Writers were now from the South, Midwest, and the West. There was a breakdown in traditional morality and values. This change could be an explanation for the non-traditional writings of Thurber and Wolfe. Even with these great changes Thurber and Wolfe still have their own style they are unlike any other authors of their time.

James Thurber was born in Columbus, Ohio. His father, Charles Leander, was a minor politician. His mother, Mary Thurber, was a strong-minded woman and loved practical jokes. Thurber depicted his mother in his autobiographical stories My Life and Hard Times (1933).

Thurbers father was the basis of the typical small, slight man of Thurber's stories. Thurber was partially blinded by a childhood accident; his brother William shot an arrow at him. He was unable to participate in games and sports so he developed a rich fantasy life. This life inspired his later fiction. He studied at Ohio State University between 1913 and 1918. He was a code clerk in Washington, DC, and at the US embassy in Paris.

He worked as a journalist for several newspapers during the early 1920's. He also lived in Paris writing for the Chicago Tribune as an attempt to further his writing career. Thurber went to New York in 1926. He became a reporter for the Evening Post.

In 1927 he joined the newly established The New Yorker, where he found his clear, concise prose style and where 15 of his books first appeared. Thurber later published his memoirs from this period The Years With Ross (1959). Thurber's first book, Is Sex Necessary? , Appeared in 1929. It was co-written by E.B. White.

White was also on the staff for the New Yorker. The book made fun of European psychoanalysis and theorist who had been attempting to reduce sex to a scientifically understandable level. This novel established Thurber as an American humorist. Thurber was married twice and had only one daughter. In his later years he lived with his wife Helen Wiser at West Cornwall, Connecticut. Thurber died of pneumonia on November 2, 1961, in New York.

Thomas Wolfe was born in Asheville, NC, in 1900. He was the eighth child of a Pennsylvania stonecutter and his third wife. Wolfe's mom was a country schoolteacher. Wolfe grew up in his mother's boarding house.

He was an exceptional student. He began public school at six and transferred to a private school at age eleven upon his teacher's request. He started college at the University of Chapel Hill at age fifteen. By the time he graduated his was editor of the school newspaper and had seen several of his plays produced by the Carolina Playmakers. He went to Harvard, planning to become a dramatist and then to New York where no one would produce his very long plays. He took a job teaching at New York University.

He began writing his memories of Asheville during a trip to Europe in 1926. He finally abandoned playwriting, and after three years of writing, revisions and editing, he published Look Homeward, Angel: A Story of the Buried Life. The success of this book allowed Wolfe to leave his teaching job, and continue writing. Six years later he published Of Time and the River. This was a sequel to his previous book. These books were pulled from his own life experiences.

Wolfe spent the next three years traveling. In 1938 he took ill with pneumonia, while in Seattle. He was brought across the continent for surgery at John Hopkins, in Baltimore, where he died of tuberculosis of the brain. Wolfe had given his manuscripts to Edward C. Aswell, his editor at Harper & Brothers, before he died.

With these manuscripts Harper & Brothers were able to produce two novels and a book of short fiction. These novels were much like his first novels and all of his novels greatly resembled his life. Wolfe was from the south where at the time racism was a very large issue while Thurber was born in the north where industry and business was booming. Wolfe began his life in a small town and Thurber's life began in a small city. Thurber who was exceptionally smart was no match for Wolfe who began college at age fifteen.

Thurber stayed in his home state to attend college while Wolfe began his college in his home state but inevitably went to Harvard to finish his studies. Both began their writing careers began at early ages. Wolfe started out as an editor for his school newspaper and Thurber began his writing career as a journalist for several newspapers. Wolfe mostly started his writing career on his own writing his own plays and having them produced by the Carolina Playmakers.

Thurber's career began with help from others. He wrote for many newspapers and magazines before he really became a famous author. Most of Wolfe's works were autobiographical and his novels were about the same type of person that grew up in the same small town went to the same college and experienced the same problems. Thurber wrote some autobiographical novels but not all of his were. He had a wild imagination and it was shown through his stories.

Both authors traveled a lot and had their own little adventures. Ironically enough they both inevitably died from the effects of pneumonia. Wolfe's life was cut short at only age 38 while Thurber's was ended at age 67, which at the time was considered to be a long life. James Thurber is classified as a humorist. His style of writing was amazing. Though he did not use much wit in his writings he could still clearly be seen as a humorist.

He has a surprisingly wide range of writing. Thurber writes from an interior view of human experience. Many times thurbers interior view is not understood by the readers' exterior view. He writes of generalized people: husbands, lonely men, servant women, etc. His writing is more of a basic form of comedy than many other humorists. Many of Thurber's children's books are somewhat classic fairy tales.

Though they do not always have the normal story lines (woman in need of saving and a hero that saves her) as the classics they still contain the same elements: princess, prince, etc. This can be shown in his great children's book Many Moons. This is a story of a princess who wants the moon and how she gets it. This is also shown in his novel Thirteen Clocks. In this novel an evil duke captures a beautiful Princess, and her beloved prince has to find a thousand jewels and unfreeze thirteen clocks.

If he fails the prince will be devoured by the invisible Todal. With help from his magical protector and an old woman the prince will try to save the princess and leave the duke to the Todal. There is no other Author that can match thurbers great imagination. In his stories the plots can be so unbelievable, but Thurber can somehow make the reader believe that it is the actual truth. He had a unique style of writing that could not be classified as humorists and in other categories, but his writing was not always the normal type of stories that a reader would expect from these categories. Though forgotten by many people he still has a huge number of fans out there that wish he were still alive to give them more stories.

Thomas Wolfe was a great American author. Though his works had some problems they were still great. Many of his works were autobiographical. They also had the same type of characters that grow up in the same neighborhood, go to the same schools, and experience the same problems. Though many believed this to make him a bad or unoriginal author the majority still loved to read his classic stories. Though loved by many he has been long forgotten.

Wolfe is not remembered by many people, and most libraries and bookstores do not carry his books anymore. His writings are matched by no other. Wolfe writes stories that match his own life. In doing this he can describe in great detail things that many writers can only lightly touch. Many believe his novel Look Homeward, Angel to be a great book to read in order to understand them selves. This book can be overly dramatic at times and heavy, but if can keep interest and read this book then you will love it.

His stories also contain repetition of many words and phrases. A reader may be found forcing himself to read through this but in the end he will appreciate the entire book. His books never contain any experiences that were not directly related to his own. Therefore Wolfe was believed to be doomed to repeat himself. It was said by many that Wolfe never emotionally developed past late adolescence. His egotism was the dominant part of his stories.

His novels are not considered by all to be works of art. Instead they are more of explosions of verbal energy. Wolfe went through life keeping detailed notebooks. He would jot down usable information as soon as it came to him. You can read the chapters in his novels backwards and still get the same overall impact that you get reading them forward. As a writer he was almost wholly unoriginal.

Wolfe's way of throwing himself into every moment, and dying young linked him to romantic poets. His dominant subject in his stories was the characters search for his lost father. Wolfe was a great author but had problems. Thurber had a great imagination while Wolfe could only write his novels on events directly related to his own life. This caused most to believe Thurber to be the better writer, but if a reader looks through his problems then he can see that they are equally talented writers. Thurber like Wolfe also wrote about events that were related to his own life allowing them both to be able to describe things in great detail.

Though Thurber did write some things related to events and experiences in his life that was not the only thing that he wrote about unlike Wolfe who would repeat his life in all his stories. Both authors had their own unique style of writing and could not be matched by no other. They had their own classifications in writing. Thurber and Wolfe were both great American authors.