The Protest Fiction of Frank Norris, Upton Sinclair, Jack London, and John Steinbeck

2015 ◽  
pp. 157-170
Author(s):  
Susan Shillinglaw
Keyword(s):  
John Steinbeck ◽  
Jack London ◽  
Frank Norris ◽  
Upton Sinclair

California Writers: Jack London / John Steinbeck / The Tough Guys.

1984 ◽  
Vol 56 (4) ◽  
pp. 608
Author(s):  
William Randel ◽  
Stoddard Martin
Keyword(s):  
John Steinbeck ◽  
Jack London

scholarly journals “The true path to salvation”: Conversion to the Religion of Socialism in the Work of Jack London and Upton Sinclair

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Ball
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Labor Movement ◽  
Religious Conversion ◽  
Jack London ◽  
Conversion Narrative ◽  
Upton Sinclair ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
True Path ◽  
Common Motif

The most common motif in early twentieth century radical literature is the conversion narrative. A variation on the bildungsroman, these works feature conversions to socialism or to the labor movement that are modeled on techniques used by evangelical revivalists and on the experiences of religious converts. The most widely read and emblematic radical authors to consistently employ this trope were Jack London and Upton Sinclair. Not only did London and Sinclair continually utilize the conversion story in their fiction and nonfiction, they both described their own discovery of socialism as a religious conversion. In their work, both authors diligently seek to conflate Christianity and socialism and to prove that, not only are the two compatible, but that authentic observance of Christianity demands the endorsement of socialism. London and Sinclair use their writing as a method of evangelism that aims to convince their audience that socialism is a religious enterprise and means to salvation.

Aesthetic Slippage in Realism and Naturalism

2019 ◽  
pp. 118-137
Author(s):  
Anita Duneer
Keyword(s):  
Henry James ◽  
Theodore Dreiser ◽  
Jack London ◽  
Natural Order ◽  
Frank Norris ◽  
Literary Naturalism ◽  
Ann Petry ◽  
Breaking Bad ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Angelina Weld Grimke

This chapter considers slippages in realist and naturalist aesthetics that transcend traditionally defined genres, terrains, and time periods. It examines realism’s and naturalism’s fluctuating acceptances and critiques of the “natural” order, bringing nineteenth-century imperialist discourse into dialogue with Darwinian themes typical of literary naturalism. The chapter proposes better understanding of the relation between realistic and naturalistic modes by examining inclusion and exclusion based on assumptions about the “natural” in analysis of slippages between representations of civilization and savagery in Jack London and Zitkala-Ša; restraint, compulsion, and the beast within the divided self in Frank Norris, Henry James, and Theodore Dreiser; and evolutionary discourse and environmental determinism in Angelina Weld Grimké, Nella Larsen, and Ann Petry. Finally, TV’s Breaking Bad and The Wire suggest that we are still grappling with the intersectional forces of race, class, and gender that define territories of privilege and limitations of the American dream.

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