Jane Smiley | Criticism

This literature criticism consists of approximately 13 pages of analysis & critique of Jane Smiley.
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Jane Smiley | Criticism

This literature criticism consists of approximately 13 pages of analysis & critique of Jane Smiley.
This section contains 3,731 words
(approx. 13 pages at 300 words per page)
Buy the Critical Essay by Jane S. Bakerman

SOURCE: “Renovating the House of Fiction: Structural Diversity in Jane Smiley's Duplicate Keys,” in Midamerica, Vol. 15, 1988, pp. 111–20.

In the following essay, Bakerman draws comparisons between Smiley's Duplicate Keys and F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, including the tension between the characters’ Midwestern values and city life in the East.

As every student of American literature knows, Nick Carraway went home again, abandoning the perplexities of life among the very rich and forswearing the confusion of life in and on the fringes of New York City. Furthermore, every student of American literature agrees, despite Thomas Wolfe's dictum, that Nick Carraway made the right decision. And, every student of American literature realizes that in the process of sending Nick home, Scott Fitzgerald voiced some serious doubts about the American Dream.1

If a young person had, as advised gone West and enjoyed great success and happiness, could that young person's offspring...

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This section contains 3,731 words
(approx. 13 pages at 300 words per page)
Buy the Critical Essay by Jane S. Bakerman
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Critical Essay by Jane S. Bakerman from Gale. ©2005-2006 Thomson Gale, a part of the Thomson Corporation. All rights reserved.