U.S.A. trilogy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

U.S.A. Trilogy
Author	John Dos Passos
Country	United States
Language	English
Publisher	Library of America
Media type	Hardcover
Pages	1312 pages
ISBN	978-1883011147

The U.S.A. Trilogy is the major work of American writer John Dos Passos, comprising the novels The 42nd Parallel (1930), 1919, also known as Nineteen Nineteen (1932), and The Big Money (1936). The three books were first published together as a one-volume edition in 1938, to which Dos Passos added the prologue labeled "U.S.A." The trilogy employs an experimental technique, incorporating four different narrative modes: fictional narratives telling the life stories of twelve fictional characters; collages of newspaper clippings and song lyrics labeled Newsreel; individually labeled short biographies of public figures of the time such as Woodrow Wilson and Henry Ford; and fragments of an autobiographical stream of consciousness labeled Camera Eye. The trilogy covers the historical development of American society during the first three decades of the twentieth century.

[edit] The Four Narrative Modes

In the fictional narrative sections, the U.S.A. trilogy relates the lives of twelve different characters as they struggle to find a place in American society during the early part of the twentieth century. Each character is presented to the reader from their childhood on and in <a href="/wiki/Free_indirect_speech" title="Free indirect spee