Creating Realities: Business as a Motif in American Fiction, 1865-1929

Description:

Business is woven into the very fabric of American life, yet rarely surfaces in the nation's literary history. Even in novels about business, it proves an elusive motif that fails to mirror actual business organizations. This book argues that literary representations of business remain ineffable because business serves potential aesthetic functions, subtly yet meaningfully impacting readers. Exploring the complex representation of business in realist, naturalist and modernist works, Erhan Simsek reveals these functions by analyzing how the motif intertwines with social developments, literary movements and author biographies. He thus illuminates the motif itself while highlighting the utility of a focus on the changing functions of literature.

subjects: Business,  America,  Literature,  Businessmen,  Aesthetics,  Economy,  American Studies,  General Literature Studies,  American History,  Social History,  Literary Studies,  Business in American Literature,  Businessmen in American Literature,  Businessman in American Literature,  Business in American Fiction,  The Great Gatsby,  The Financier,  The Rise of Silas Lapham,  Ragged Dick,  The Silent Partner,  The Business Man,  Bartleby The Scrivener,  Business in literature,  Businessmen in literature,  American fiction,  History and criticism

People: F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940),  William Dean Howells (1837-1920),  Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945),  Ayn Rand (1905-1982),  Steve Jobs (1955-2011),  Herman Melville (1819-1891),  Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849),  Timothy Shay Arthur,  Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790),  John Dos Passos (1896-1970),  T. S. Eliot (1888-1965),  Erich Auerbach (1892-1957)

Places: New York,  Philadelphia,  Boston,  New England,  North America,  Massachusetts,  Pennsylvania

Times: 1865-1929