The two time periods, naturalist and post-WWII were over a hundred years apart and had very different, social, economical, and moral standards, rights of women, rights of different races, rights of children; all of these things were different in the time periods. Despite these huge differences, both time periods were turning points in how America and the world at large viewed the treatment of peoples. In the naturalist era the world was still dealing with and adapting to all the changes the industrial age had brought. Child labor was still legal, thousands shuffled from poor house to poor house, and families survived on pennies a week. The post-WWII era was also a very dramatic age especially in the United States of America. The country was in the midst of cultural upheaval as free love, racial equality, and women’s rights sprang onto the doorstep of every American. The older generation was told what it had been taught was wrong, and the younger generation was being controlled by the older one who refused to change. These two time periods were hugely different, but in many ways similar, and a common message can be seen between the two.
“He was stopped by a signal in the middle of Ilium’s black ghetto. The people who lived here hated it so much that they had burned down a lot of it a month before. It was all they had, and they’d wrecked it.”[1] London’s The People of the Abyss and Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-five were written over one hundred years apart, and dealt with entirely different topics. But an underlying theme of social commentary can be found in both as they criticize the status quo, one in the form of social classes, the other in the form of wasteful wars.
Both of these books take on issues very debatable during their respective times and met with much success and controversy. London criticized the exploitation and oppression of the lower class in the greatest empire on earth at a time when business ethics and child labor laws were not even a dream. Vonnegut criticized what was thought of as the last great and righteous war at a time when America was discovering what it meant to be a world power and how easy it was to abuse that power. Both authors however make small notes of the others topic throughout their books. The two topics intertwine as they both show the flaws in society.
“The fighting men of England, masters of destruction, engineers of death! Another race of men from those of the shops and slums, a totally different race of men.”[2] Was a statement by London that while in tune with his own theme of classes is also a statement about how the soldiers and commanders are entirely different from anyone else. This statement holds true with Vonnegut in the sense that the generals aren’t in touch with the people they send to their deaths (i.e. the men from the slums). “There was a tap on Billy’s car window. A black man was out there. He wanted to talk about something. The light changed. Billy did the simplest thing. He drove on.”[3] By Vonnegut deals with a topic that wasn’t even considered in London’s days (class by race) but is the same as one of the people from East End being oppressed by a “gentlemen” in London’s book.
For all their similarities however, these books came from widely different situations and experiences. In The People of the Abyss London disguised himself and descended into England’s slums with the intention of writing about the experiences and presenting them to the people. He took notes of what they looked like, their routine, London even spent many days doing the jobs of the slums for pennies an hour. He went through and endured all of this with the intention of discovering and later revealing. Vonnegut however wrote from a completely different background. Vonnegut did in actuality serve in WWII and was in fact present at the fire bombing of Dresden. And while he occasionally injects himself into the story the main character is entirely fictional as are his experiences.
Vonnegut used humor, 4-d aliens, and being unstuck in time to deliver the biting views underneath. Whereas London for the most part simply painted pictures of what he’d actually seen and observed with only occasional thoughts and opinions. London is very straightforward in giving people the facts, and letting them deduce and ponder them of their own accord. Vonnegut gives people fiction, and the opportunity to take Slaughterhouse-five at face value, or dig deeper and discover its true intentions. Although these two styles have very different approaches given the appropriate reader they both serve to educate and teach about social injustices.
Another difference in both of the books is the manner in which they approach death. In Slaughterhouse-five Vonnegut uses death not to show survival of the fittest, so much as survival of the stupidest. In the beginning of Vonnegut’s novel the protagonist (Billy Pilgrim) is ditched while in German territory by the two military scouts that actually know how to survive. Shortly after this Billy hears two shots in the woods that indicated the scouts were ambushed by German troops. Vonnegut approaches death as something that doesn’t go by who is the most able or smartest, it goes by pure luck and being left behind. London has a very different approach in People of the Abyss. In London’s book it doesn’t matter smart, or hard working, or even how low of a profile you keep. Because once people are sentenced to “the abyss” their life becomes a living death that they can’t escape. The classes and rules of life are set for the poor people who live in East End and there is no escaping them. In reality it isn’t even a matter of death for these people since it amounts to the same thing. Everyone works in horrible conditions around horrible materials and lives a horrible life.
In a way, however, though the two novels approach to death is similar. In Vonnegut’s novel people die almost completely by random situations and chance, and in London’s novel people are given a guaranteed death sentence based upon the status into which they’re born. So despite the difference in timing the end result in both books is that death is based upon chance, whether it’s at your birth or right before your death you can do nothing to stave off death. This approach to death subconsciously furthers both of the authors belief that how things are (at their respective times of course) is not right. Death is the most feared and most controversial thing about human life. The authors create subconscious idea that if in this society I will die completely by chance it should change because I don’t want to die.
The two poetry examples I looked at, “A Step Away From Them” by Frank O’Hara, and “War is Kind” by Stephen Crane however showed two very different and unrelated aspects of their respective times. The poem by O’Hara was not focused so much on moral or political issues, but it was simply about appreciating life in general, something which isn’t quite a social cause. However Crane’s poem fell very much in line with the Slaughter House 5 theme of anti-war. Although these poems seem to be very different on the surface and even a little below I think that when you take both you can actually find a fair amount in common.
One common device shared between the two poems was the use of still images.
In O’Hara’s poem he captures seemingly random images from his lunch
break. “There
are cats playing in sawdust.” This uses a very similar style to what
Crane used to describe the battle scene. “Swift blazing flag of the regiment,
Eagle with crest of red and gold.” Both of these quotes are part of not
an entire moving picture. They are stills that the author uses in order to
make us better picture the scene and imagine details for ourselves.
The two paintings I compared for this paper are “Village Market” by Camille Pissarro and “Back View” by Philip Guston. I chose these two paintings because they seemed similar in how they portrayed people. Pissarro shows the hustle and bustle of a small village market, kind of tucked away from the rest of the world and on its own. Guston’s painting appears to show a single person alone facing a wall with a load strapped upon their back. Although both of the paintings were done with oil on canvas there are quite a number of differences between them. In Pissarro’s painting all the colors are bright and stand out whereas Guston’s is much more grey and other colors mixed with grey meaning they aren’t vibrant.
What we see when comparing these two time periods and their novels, poetry and literature is that they are in fact very similar. Although the two art pieces seemed dissimilar we could still detect similarities. And the novels and poetry had a lot in common both in how they were written and in the views they expressed. It’s hard to say based merely upon two periods in history, but the conclusion I draw from this is that no matter how far apart the time period is people have always used art and literature to express social causes. Whether it’s a poem about appreciating life or a painting about homelessness we can see in these works a desire to make a positive change in the world.
Bibliography
Crane, Steven. “War is Kind.” War is Kind. 1899
Guston, Philip. “Back View” 1977
London, Jack. People of the Abyss. Location Unknown. Macmillan, 1903.
O’Hara, Fank. “A Step Away From Them”
Pissarro, Camille. “Village Market”
Vonnegut, Kurt. Slaughterhouse-Five. New York: Dell Publishing, 1969
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[1] Slaughterhouse-five Chapter 3, pg. 59
[2] The People of the Abyss- Chapter 12
[3] Slaughterhouse-five- Chapter 3, pg. 59
