Great Depression Has Had a Significant Effect Thesis

Great Depression has had a significant effect on society as a whole and it has also provided inspiration for creative minds who acknowledged the suffering that it generated. Many American writers saw the events accompanying the economic crisis from a firsthand perspective and their artistic personalities thus came to shape their perception of these respective happenings. Literature actually provided a way out for individuals who suffered financial deficit, as they could escape society's problems into the pages of a book that could provide them with a whole new point-of-view regarding the depression and concerning their personal identity.

One of the principal negative consequences triggered by the Great Depression was the fact that the American Dream was no longer attainable in an environment dominated by poverty. American writers got actively engaged in writing in regard to the crisis and did not hesitate to paint a true portrayal of conditions in the U.S. during the event. Progress was no longer the concept sought for by most Americans, as they came to replace it with survival. As a consequence, individuals started to search for a way out and most people were willing to do anything in their power in order to be affected by the depression as little as possible, considering the horrific conditions that they lived in at the time. Even with the fact that reading was not exactly the most constructive method of recovering from the situation that they were in, individuals expressed particular interest in literature relating to the financial crisis. They most probably considered that they could gain a better understanding of the event if they were to see it from the perspective of someone who saw it as inspiration material.

Many writers came to acknowledge the importance of their role in the American society as a result of watching the Great Depression and the damage that it caused. "Like the Great War, the Great Depression forced a similar radical reassessment of the role of the artist in American society and the response of writers to its social challenge" (Burt 3). Taking this into account, one might be inclined to associate suffering with creation, considering that a great deal of artists produced remarkable works as a result of focusing on the depression and on its effects.In addition to wanting to emphasize the gravity of the event, many writers wanted to alert the population concerning the faults of capitalism, an ideology previously thought to be the most effective to have ever existed. It was practically as if these individuals were finally provided with the opportunity to condemn the strategies of a corrupt system and took advantage of it. It was practically impossible for someone to criticize them at this point, considering that they acted similar to correspondents who told a story as objectively as possible but without hesitating to involve their point-of-view into the writings.

It practically seemed that American literature experienced much progress during the Great Depression and that writers were ready to write more serious texts, works that they expected to have a significant effect on their readers and that they wanted to contribute to the general change that literature was going to make in order to remedy conditions in the country. While some might be inclined to consider that drama was one of the only concepts that could be associated with the event, other writers actually turned to using comedy as a means to condemn American leaders and to highlight the suffering of Americans. Writers realized that they were among the only ones holding power over ideologies in the U.S. And came to focus on providing the masses with education in regard to the attitudes that they needed to employ in order to improve conditions in the country (Solomon 124).

U.S. writers and intellectuals in general considered that the Great Depression stood as proof that they needed to employ much thinking in regard to the political ideology….....