Sinclair Lewis

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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sinclair Lewis wrote primarily about middle class America. His novels examine
the different jobs that these Americans hold. His novel Arrowsmith looks at the American scientific society. Dodsworth examines the life of the upper middle class, while Elmer Gantry scrutinizes America’s obsession with religion and Main Street looks at small town America. His novel Babbitt observes the extreme conformism America embraces. His novels range from 400 to 500 pages and are not difficult to read. They start out slow but the endings are better. His subject matter is not that interesting because it only revolves around people in everyday society going to work and struggling with their hopes and desires. Sinclair Lewis wrote at the beginning of the nineteenth century so I would consider his novels fairly conservative to modern day society’s standards.

Jamie M. said...

Only one writer in American history can ever boast that he was the first writer from the United States to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. The aforementioned writer’s name is Sinclair Lewis. Sinclair Lewis wrote his most famous novels, Babbitt, Main Street, Elmer Gantry, Arrowsmith, and Dodsworth, in the 1920s. Of the titles of these five books, four, with the exception of Main Street, share their names with the name of the protagonist of the book. These iconic names have become legendary, and people in modern society might use any of these names to describe the archetypal American man of the 1920s. The genre of these most popular and critically-acclaimed books is satire, and they generally fall between the 400-500 page length. Any honors English student at Wellesley High School should be able to understand and analyze his works. Lewis writes in a compelling style that directly conveys all major themes and messages in a detailed and elaborate manner, so, while reading the books can be, on occasion, on the more difficult side, creating a thesis statement and identifying significant quotations is an simple and relatively painless process. I would encourage anyone who considers Sinclair Lewis as an option to first read the beginning of one of his books. If you do not enjoy his writing style, reading the books will be more strenuous and less interesting. That said, I had a highly enjoyable American Author Thesis experience, and, in retrospect, I am happy with my decision to read and write about novels written by the great Sinclair Lewis.

-Jamie Mazzola, Wellesley High School Honors English student taught by Mrs. Maxwell

American Author Thesis

Now that you have written your essay, we ask that you reflect on the reading portion of the experience and write 100-150 words about your author.

Think of what you write as advice for someone next year and beyond, someone who (like you were doing last fall) is thinking about choosing your author - and maybe even the same three books - to read for the assignment.