American Literature Essay

Thank God that I remembered to submit my essay topic today for my American Literature class. I nearly forgot, which would have been bad. Good thing that I put some thought into the topic for my essay before hand. I am choosing to write about the “Lost Generation” theme in the two works “Babylon Revisited“, and “The Sun Also Rises”. I am going to be discussing how each character does or does not fall under this particular category. Also, I will discuss the implications of the theme.

I think that this will not be a very hard essay to do. I have a fairly good understanding of the theme, but will probably do a little bit more research in order to write a strong paper. The “Lost Generation” refers to the generation after the first world war. These people had lived in a time before the war where the economy was great, and people believed in the American ideals. After the war, people began to see things in a different light. The characters in both works are a good example of this. They are disillusioned, and seem to be wandering around the world. isolated from one another in terms of thoughts and emotions.

What is Writer’s Block?

We discussed a few different section’s from the book “Deepening Fiction” in my writing fiction class today. One of the sections we discussed was “Writer’s Block”. The sections was gave a good insight on what writer’s block is, and where it can come from.

Writer’s Block can come from either external or internal forces. The external forces include but are not limited to:

• Too much work
• Family problems
• Busy schedule

Some of the internal sources may be:

• Self doubt
• lack of skill
• lack of motivation

I enjoyed reading this section because I often lack motivation to write. This doesn’t necessarily mean that I am not cut out for writing. It many be since there is a lot going on in my life I can not find the time or energy to think of good stories.

One other concept that I found note-worthy yet kind of confusing is the difference beweens writer’s block and the typical struggling with writing. Writer’s block stems from some of the sources that I listed above. Writer’s struggles is just that struggling with writing a work. It could be that a writer is frustrated with the work, can keep on track, or just needs a break. Sometimes a writer should take a break from writing for a week or two if it is not going anywhere. This does not fall under the category of writer’s block.

We discussed this issue of distinguishing between the two in class today. My professor says that it does not matter that much, as long as you recognize that you do need a break.