"Twentieth Century Through the Eyes of Literature"
             Even though I have grown up in the twentieth century, there is plenty of things that I am not familiar with from the earlier half. Reading stories about it help me to see what life might have been like then. Literature is a window into a time and place, and Of Mice and Men , "The Far and the Near", and Dust Tracks on a Road provide views of life in the twentieth century through the use of insight of realism, romanticism, and point of view.
             In Of Mice and Men , you see the use of realism throughout the story. The lives of George and Lennie are not far-fetched at all for that time period. Due to the bad economy they had to go from job to job. The way that they were living is depressing because I have never had to endure that kind of hardship. Not only does it show how George and Lennie lived, it also shows the life that Crooks had on the ranch. Crooks had a hard life because he was black and that made him an outcast to all the other guys that worked on the ranch. He had to live in a room in the barn by himself and spend his time on the ranch alone.
             Romanticism is a device that is used to provide a look into the early twenty first century in "The Far and the Near." This story shows how someone has an idea or a hope for something that is actually not there all along. This could show how people in the twentieth century had a hope for more than what was there at the time. This is also apparent in Of Mice and Men with George and Lennie. They always talked about their hopes to one day own land with a house of their own. The hopes that they had were not necessarily realistic for people of their stature at the time. These views were definitely romantic for them at this time in the twentieth century when the country was going through the great depression.
             The point of view of Zora Neale Hurston in Dust Tracks on a Road helps me to see into the ...