Dos Passos Analysis

Dos Passos’s novels of recent years have been disappointing, as essentially political novels; however, often containing acute social insights, they do have some value. For example, a certain sociological interest attaches to the three attacks on radical attitudes in Chosen Country, despite the fact that they have been loosely linked to a story which is both sentimental and undistinguished. Among contemporary novelists the role of Dos Passos has been that of the rational social historian and his value has been great.

A novelist can be judged primarily by his social or political views. Dos Passos, as the historian of American society among the novelists, ought to have a specific responsibility to history, while his picture of the New Deal is

Moreover, despite the reversal in his political affiliations, the political never left the foreground of his novel. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he did not move from a radical political art to a political formalism, and thus never won the allegiance of formalist or aesthetic critics. As a result, the history of Dos Passos’s political opinions has tended to overshadow his fiction. There are far more biographical accounts of Dos Passos than critical accounts and one of the few critical controversies about U.S.A. revolves around its political complexion: whether the work is informed by his “Marxism” or his

Donald Pizer has postulated that, he worked on each mode as a separate entity, beginning with the biographical and narrative sections, and then alternated segments of the different forms of ironic effect. Early critical reaction to the three novels was overwhelmingly positive. Although a few reviewers faulted them as excessively pessimistic and lacking in warmth and emotion; most commentators lauded the trilogy’s innovative style and wide-ranging, satirical portrait of American Society.

References:

1. Belkind, Allen. Dos Passos, the Critics, and the Writer’s Intention. New York: Illinois UP, 1971.

2. Brantley, John D. U.S.A.: The Natural History of a Society. The Hague, The Netherlands: Mouton & Co., 1968.

3. Hook, Andrew. John Dos Passos: A Collection of Critical Essays. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1974.

4. Millgate, Michael. “John Dos Passos.” American Social Fiction. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1964.

5. Passos, Dos. The 42nd Parallel. New York: Harper, 1930.

6. ---------. 1919. New York: Harcourt, 1932.

7. ---------. The Big Money. New York: Harcourt, 1936.

8. Sartre, Jean-Paul. Literary and Philosophical Essays. London: Rider, 1955.

9. Thorp, Willard. American Writing in the Twentieth Century. Massachusetts: Harvard UP, 1963.

10. Wagner, Linda W. Dos Passos: Artist as American. California: University of Texas Press.