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The stage play of Look Homeward, Angel by Ketti Frings had a run of 554 performances on Broadway. It won both the New York Drama Critics Award and the Pulitzer Prize in Drama for 1958 and starred ...
Oct 10, 2000 · Calling a Classic Into Question. By MARY McNAMARA. Oct. 10, 2000 12 AM PT. TIMES STAFF WRITER. There is a lot going on between the two greatly separated covers of “O Lost: A Story of the Buried ...
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- Introduction
- Author Biography
- Plot Summary
- Media Adaptations
- Characters
- Themes
- Topics For Further Study
- Style
- Historical Context
- Compare & Contrast
A thinly disguised autobiography and a portrait of the early twentieth-century American South, Look Homeward, Angel is the most famous book of an author who used to be regarded as an equal of Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and William Faulkner. Published in New Yorkin 1929, Thomas Wolfe's novel was considered striking and important—a work b...
Born October 3, 1900, in Asheville, North Carolina, Thomas Wolfe was the youngest of eight children, two of whom died when they were very young. His father, William Oliver Wolfe, traveled around the northern United States, married twice without having children, and then moved to Asheville, where he married Julia Elizabeth West-all. When her younges...
Part 1
Look Homeward, Angel begins with the journey of Englishman Gilbert Gaunt to Pennsylvania; there he marries a Dutch woman. One of his sons, Oliver Gant (the name was changed upon Gilbert's immigration), becomes a stonecutter and travels through the Southuntil settling with his first wife, Cynthia. After her death, Gant thinks he is dying of tuberculosis and travels west until he reaches the small mountain-valley town of Altamont. Gant sets up a stonecutting shop and recovers from his restless...
Part 2
Eugene grows up rapidly. One day he wins the composition contest the new principal, John Leonard, holds. Margaret Leonard convinces Eliza to send Eugene to their new private school. Mr. Leonard teaches the boys rudimentary Latin and his sister Amy teaches math and history. Mrs. Leonard (whom Eugene idealizes) teaches the boys English, a subject she is passionate about. Eugene becomes closer with Ben and grows to hate Steve more. Luke and Ben hate Steve too. One night, after Steve has been yel...
Look Homeward, Angel was adapted as a three-act comedy/drama by Ketti Frings, first produced in New York at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre in 1957. It was published by Scribner in 1958, won the Pulitz...John Chandler Griffin's Memories of Thomas Wolfe: A Pictorial Companion to "Look Homeward, Angel"(1996) is a very helpful companion piece to Wolfe's novel, both as a source of contextual informatio...Principal Armstrong
Armstrong, a fat, "delicate" man, is Eugene's first school principal.
Hugh Barton
Hugh is Helen's husband, an eloquent salesman ten years older than she. Although he takes her to Sydney, where Gant lived during his first marriage, Hugh eventually moves back to Altamont, where Helen can once again take care of Gant. Hugh complains that Gant takes advantage of his closest daughter, but eventually he is silent in response to Helen's strong will.
Miss Brown
Although this is unlikely to be her real name, "Miss Brown" is a tenant of Dixieland from the Midwest who sleeps with Eugene. Eugene does not have any money, so she accepts his medals from Leonard's school as payment.
The American Experience
Wolfe is interested in portraying a representative American experience and an allegory of American youth in his novel. Although Wolfe is often associated with expatriate American writers such as Hemingway and Fitzgerald, and made several long trips to Europe while he was writing Look Homeward, Angel, the author saw himself within the American tradition. Wolfe would not have deemed his writings "modernist" in the international sense of the term. He is better classified as an American romantic.
Thomas Wolfe was a legendary figure in his time. Read some primary source historical material to examine how his contemporaries viewed him. For example, read The Journey Downby Aline Bernstein, whi...What do you think Look Homeward, Angel says about race relations? Did the novel's treatment of African Americansoffend you? What do other critics say about Wolfe's racial views? Do some reading abo...One of Wolfe's intentions in writing his first novel was to create a new tradition of southern literature. Did he succeed? Read some other books classified as "literature of the South," such as Wil...Wolfe was obsessed with the idea of "the American experience." What would Walt Whitman or Henry David Thoreau say about this idea? Read some of their writings to find out. Compare and contrast Wolf...Romanticism
Wolfe's style has often been called "romantic," both because of the emotional extremes of its sprawling style and because of the American tradition it is not entirely outside. American writers like Walt Whitman, who among other achievements captured a broad sense of American life, were very influential over Wolfe's authorial intentions. Wolfe frequently wrote that he loved America and wished to represent its "grandness"; part of this process in Look Homeward, Angelconsisted of melding traditi...
By the beginning of the twentieth century, America was rapidly developing into a modernized country with a consumer economy. Southern towns, like their northern counterparts, were quickly expanding, and new jobs and industries were resulting from the continued growth of the leisure class. A resort town such as Asheville, North Carolina (the double ...
1900–1920: The infant mortality rate in the United States is 140 per 1,000 live births. Today: Infant mortalityhas shrunk dramatically to below 8 per 1,000 live births.1900–1920: The races in the American South are notoriously unequal. Segregation and discrimination are widespread, and most blacks live in poverty. During these two decades, there are 1,413 recorde...1900–1920: Real estate and investment is becoming very popular among those who can afford it, given the rapid expansion of American cities. Today:Buying property and real estate has once again beco...Oct 2, 2000 · ''Look Homeward, Angel'' is both a denunciation of small-town provincialism and a loving attempt to preserve it. Especially, it is a novel about identity and the creation of an artist. ''Naked and ...
Vasili III Ivanovich was Grand Prince of Moscow and all Russia from 1505 until his death in 1533. He was the son of Ivan III and Sophia Paleologue and was christened with the name Gavriil (Гавриил). Following on the ambitions of his predecessor Ivan, Vasili conquered Pskov, Ryazan and Smolensk as well as strengthening Russian influence in Kazan and to the Volga region. Several nobles ...
Discussion of themes and motifs in Thomas Wolfe's Look Homeward, Angel. eNotes critical analyses help you gain a deeper understanding of Look Homeward, Angel so you can excel on your essay or test.
