Experiences such as lost hopes and shattered dreams are common concerns in American literature of the 20th century. Compare and contrast the treatment of these experiences in at least two works of American literature you have studied.

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Experiences such as lost hopes and shattered dreams are common concerns in American literature of the 20th century.  Compare and contrast the treatment of these experiences in at least two works of American literature you have studied.

        Tennessee Williams uses lost hopes and shattered dreams to create pathos within an audience, in order to recreate

The setting is very important in conveying lost hopes and shattered dreams, and I find it extremely interesting that the play is set in the Elysian Fields, ‘a poor section…weathered grey, with rickety outside stairs and galleries’, rather than at Belle Reve, ‘A great big place with white columns’.  I think William’s uses the ‘cosmopolitan city’ of New Orleans as a backdrop, to create an atmosphere of loss for the character Blanche.  Blanche is a foreigner to this place, and this gives her a mysterious quality.  Her sudden willingness to make what she calls a ‘horrible place’ her home infuses suspicion within the audience as it is so starkly contrasting to her previously affluent lifestyle at Belle Reve.  Why has she been forced to degrade herself by taking ‘a streetcar named Desire’ to New Orleans, ‘the city that care forgot’ in order to live with her sister?  It is the answer to this question, revealed gradually throughout the play, which engages the audience, and it is all the more poignant because Williams has introduced Blanche as an unknown quantity. So, Williams has placed Blanche in an unknown area, and this is often seen as the beginning of her gradual descent, which results in her loosing her sense of place in American society.

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 There is a sense of loss as soon as she enters in her opening expression, ‘one of shocked disbelief.  Her appearance is incongruous to this setting’.  When forming characters he gives Blanche a shadowed past of alcoholism, prostitution, paedophilia and loss of her home, then conveys the desperation these have caused her to feel through her clothing, speech and taste in music; all of which are simply out of place within the ‘raffish charm’ of New Orleans.

The setting is equally important in ‘Death of a Salesman’, however it is used to different effect.  As Williams uses the setting ...

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