This essay examines recurring themes of racism and modern disillusionment across five works of American literature. It analyzes how William Faulkner's Light in August, Jean Toomer's Cane, and Eugene O'Neill's The Hairy Ape each portray racism as an unreflective, embedded social reality rather than an exceptional event. The essay then turns to Robert Frost's "After Apple-Picking" and T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" to explore how modern poets questioned the era's faith in individualism, self-improvement, and progress, ultimately presenting disillusionment and mortality as the defining truths of modern life.
In the works of William Faulkner (Light in August), Jean Toomer (Cane), and Eugene O'Neill (The Hairy Ape), the theme of racism emerges as a social issue embedded in the daily lives and mundane activities of people across American history. What is evident in these authors' works is the illustration of racism as a way of life — part of the ordinary — wherein the phenomenon simply occurs without sufficient explanation or determined origin. Moreover, racism is almost always depicted by treating non-white or colored individuals as inherently untrustworthy and prone to deviant acts and behavior.
Faulkner's novel features Joe Christmas, a man of mixed race who is branded a bad man because, among other things, he has "negro blood." What is notable in the townspeople's judgment is that they do not condemn him primarily for his irresponsible or criminal acts, but mainly because he is a man of mixed blood. Their assessment of Christmas's character is based almost entirely on his race, and his criminal behavior merely reinforces the community's pre-conceived notions that he was indeed a man unworthy of their trust. His story, as explored in Light in August, exemplifies how racial identity could override all other considerations of individual character in the American South.
"O'Neill and Toomer link race to moral and industrial decline"
"Frost questions self-improvement ideals through apple-picking imagery"
"Eliot argues death renders modern progress ultimately hollow"
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