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Exploring American Identity Through War, Society, and Historical Struggles in Literature

This collection dives into pivotal themes in American literature, exploring the complexities of identity, societal expectations, and the effects of war. Key works like *Cold Mountain* and *Catch-22* illustrate the harrowing experiences of soldiers, while novels like *The Bell Jar* and *The Color Purple* address women's struggles against societal norms. From the Wild West to the Civil War and the Vietnam conflict, these narratives reflect the American experience, grappling with themes of racial tension, immigration, and the eternal search for self amidst chaos.

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Exploring American Identity Through War, Society, and Historical Struggles in Literature

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  1. Theme Book Ideas Mr. Amaral

  2. War Experience • Women in Conflict with Society’s Expectations • Wild West and Wilderness Experience • Baseball: All American Sport • 1920’s Expatriate Generation • Chicago Experience • American Frontier/Social Protest • Racial Tension and Identity • Southern Issues • Immigrant Experience • American Family • America’s Role in the World

  3. The War Experience

  4. Cold Mountainby Charles Frazier • Plot Background: wounded soldier decides to walk back home to the Blue Ridge Mts. of North Carolina and the woman he loves. • Author Background: His first novel, taught and lives in North Carolina. • Historical Setting: Civil War Era

  5. Catch-22by Joseph Heller • Plot Background: satirical war novel, World War II bombardier feigns insanity in order to get home • Author Background: Heller served as a B-25 wing bombardier in World War II, flew sixty missions • Historical Period: 1944, Final Months of World War II

  6. Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut • Plot Background: war novel, life of a soldier who survives the bombing of Dresden • Author Background: Vonnegut served in the US Army from 1942-1945, was a POW, and received the Purple Heart • Historical Period: 1945, Dresden, Germany, and imaginary planet Tralfadore

  7. In Country by Bobbie Ann Mason • Plot Background: daughter of man killed in Vietnam tries to link with her past • Author Background: newspaper and magazine writer • Historical Period: 1984, with flashbacks to the Vietnam War

  8. The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien • Plot Background: short stories about soldiers in Vietnam • Author Background: served in Vietnam • Historical Period: Vietnam War

  9. Going After Cacciatoby: Tim O’Brien • Plot Background: A solider recounts what happened and what could have happened in Vietnam • Author Background: O’Brien served in an Army combat unit during a tour of duty in Vietnam • Historical Period: Vietnam 1969

  10. Paco’s Storyby Larry Heinemann • Plot Background: Vietnam Veteran returns to town looking for work and a sense of normalcy. • Author Background: won the National Book Award in 1987 • Historical Period: post-Vietnam war

  11. Ender’s Gameby Orson Scott Card • Plot Background: young people train for alien military attack • Author Background: science fiction writer known for his moral themes • Historical Period: future

  12. Cat’s Cradleby Kurt Vonnegut • Plot Background: search for ice that freezes at room temperature • Author Background: mixes science fiction and philosophy • Historical Period: 1960’s

  13. Women in Conflict with Society’s Expectations

  14. The House of Mirthby Edith Wharton • Plot Background: single woman in wealthy New York society • Author Background: experienced New York affluence; received Pulitzer Prize for The Age of Innocence in 1921 • Historical Period: early 1900’s

  15. The Color Purpleby Alice Walker • Plot Background: Georgia, Tennessee, Africa, 1920-40 • Author Background: Brought up in the rural South, won Pulitzer for this book • Historical Background: The exploitation of women

  16. The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan • Plot Background: women’s unhappiness in the 1960’s • Author Background: feminist organizer, writer, and lecturer • Historical Period: 1960’s

  17. The Bell Jarby Sylvia Plath Plot: Highly intelligent young woman struggles with career choices and her own mental stability in the Fifties. Author: Autobiographical treatment of Plath’s very real personal battles. Historical events: Conservative era with limited choices for women.

  18. Memoirs of an Ex-Prom Queen by Alix Kates Shulman • Plot Background: memoirs of a woman who feels trapped in her marriage and her life • Author Background: feminist writer, her book was considered the "first important novel to emerge from the Women's Liberation movement." • Historical Period: late 1960’s

  19. The Optimist's Daughterby Eudora Welty • Plot Background: Laurel visits her dying, but powerful Father and finds him married ‘to a coarse and shallow woman’, who is Laurel’s age. • Author Background: Pulitzer Prize in 1973 • Historical Period: New Orleans, Mississippi Delta 1960’s

  20. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood • Plot Background: futuristic story about women’s rights • Author Background: prominent Canadian writer of many genres • Historical Period: 22nd century (2195)

  21. The Wild WestThe Wilderness Experience

  22. Undaunted Courageby Stephen Ambrose • Plot Background: focuses on the exploratory journey of Lewis and Clark. • Author Background: author of several books about American History, • Historical Setting: late 1700’s early 1800’s

  23. The Oxbow Incidentby Arthur Van Tilburg Clark • Setting: Nevada • Time Period: 1885 • Theme: Three cattle rustlers are lynched—just as word comes that they are innocent. Seen as the ‘struggle between democracy and totalitarianism’

  24. Lonesome Doveby Larry McMurty • Setting: Great Plains • Time Period: Late 19th C. • Theme: Adventures of two former Texas Rangers on a cattle drive from Texas to Montana; Pulitzer Prize winner

  25. Bad LandBy Jonathan Raban • Setting: Montana • Time Period: 1909. • Theme: Congress, lobbied by the railroad, offered homesteaders 320-acres. An account of the hardships, myths, heroes, heroines and ruin of many immigrants.

  26. O Pioneers!by Willa Cather • Plot Background: Swedish immigrants tame the wild land, also, a love triangle in Nebraska • Author Background: considered this her first novel, based on the memories of her youth. • Historical Period: 1880’s immigration, role of women

  27. A Lost Ladyby Willa Cather • Plot Background: story told by a boy in a Midwestern town, who admires the gracious ways and manners of Marian Forrester • Author Background: First ever woman to be voted into the Nebraska hall of fame • Historical Background: the decline of the West, 1920’s

  28. Baseball: the All-American Sport

  29. The Naturalby Bernard Malamud • Plot Background: a superbly gifted “natural” at play in the fields of the old daylight baseball era. Filled with magical realism • Author Background: The Natural was his first of eight novels, taught at Bennington College in Vermont • Historical Period: 1930’s and 1940’s rural vs. urban life

  30. Plot: 1919 fix of the World Series and its attempted cover-up “The most thorough investigation of the Black Sox scandal on record” ~The Chicago Tribune Eight Men Outby Eliot Asinof

  31. 1920’s Expatriate GenerationEarly 20th Century

  32. This Side of Paradiseby F. Scott Fitzgerald • Plot Background: 1920’s, East coast and Princeton University • Author Background: Novelist and screen writer who epitomized the Jazz Age • Historical Background: Lost Generation, Jazz Age

  33. The Sun Also Risesby Ernest Hemingway • Plot Background: life among the expatriates on Paris's Left Bank during the 1920s • Author Background: winner of the 1954 Nobel Prize for Literature

  34. Plot Background: mystery set in the underworld of San Francisco Author Background: former Pinkerton detective; wrote for pulp fiction magazines Historical Background: 1928, prohibition, stock market crash The Maltese Falconby Dashiell Hammett

  35. The Chicago Experience

  36. Studs Loniganby James T. Farrell • Plot Background: Chicago’s South Side, 1916-1930 • Author Background: Irish South-Sider who worked a wide variety of jobs • Historical Background: End of World War I, Prohibition

  37. The Coast of ChicagoBy Stuart Dybek • Setting: Chicago • Time period: 1990’S & 2000’S • Theme: Long stories and short ones. Some read like poetry. Life in neighborhoods everywhere

  38. House on Mango Streetby Sandra Cisneros • Setting: Chicago • Time Period: Mid-1960’s • Theme: A Chicana feminist, Cisneros writes of growing up in Chicago’s Mexican- American neighborhoods. Deals with ethnicity and sexual identity.

  39. American Social Protest

  40. In Dubious Battle by John Steinbeck • Plot Background: California farm area, 1930’s • Author Background: Fruit picker, journalist, screen writer, Nobel Prize winner • Historical Period: Great Depression, rise of the American Communist Party

  41. Plot: Two young men travel across the country in search of thrills and adventure. Author: Autobiographical novel of Kerouac’s experiences in the late Forties. Historical events: McCarthyism, conformist culture in the Fifties when the book was published. On the Roadby Jack Kerouac

  42. The Dharma Bumsby Jack Kerouac • Plot Background: The semi-fictional accounts in the novel are based upon events that occurred years after On the Road • Author Background: concerns duality in Kerouac's life and ideals • Historical Period: late 1950’s

  43. Electric Kool-Aid Acid Testby Tom Wolfe • Plot Background: Ken Kesey’s psychedelic road trip • Author Background: known for “New Journalism” style • Historical Period: 1960’s

  44. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nestby Ken Kesey • Plot Background: revolution and power struggle set in a mental ward • Author Background: volunteered for government LSD experiments & worked in a psychiatric ward • Historical Period:1960’s

  45. Less Than Zero and American Psychoby Bret Easton Ellis • Historical Period: 1980’s • Plot Background: LA college student experiments with drugs & alcohol (Less Than Zero). • Plot: explore depths of insanity as a stockbroker by day tortures and murders at night (American Psycho). • Author Background: wrote first book when he was 20.

  46. The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight by Jimmy Breslin • Plot Background: Dark Comedy about Joe Gallo, a New York City gangster. • Author Background: awarded the Pulitzer Prize (1986); writer for several New York City newspapers • Historical Period: Mafia crime, 1940’s – 1960’s

  47. Racial Tension and Identity African American Native American Asian American

  48. Invisible Manby Ralph Ellison • Plot Background: a young man finds new ways of dealing with race and identity • Author Background: Ellison wrote about the unity of the the American experience beyond class, race and religion. • Historical Period: 1940s and Early 1950s, Deep South and Harlem.

  49. Uncle Tom’s Cabinby Harriet Beecher Stowe • Plot Background: Kentucky and Louisiana, explores social and psychological problems with slavery and injustice. • Author Background: appalled by slavery, she wrote this book as a response. Book sold more than 300,000 copies in 1852 when it was published. • Historical Period: The South, late 1800’s

  50. Native Sonby Richard Wright • Plot Background: Chicago, 1930’s • Author Background: Moved North as a young man, first full-length novel • Historical Period: Great Black Migration, rise of American Communist Party, Great Depression

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