SOURCE: "William Saroyan: A Portrait," in College English, Vol. 6, No. 2, November, 1944, pp. 92-100.

In the following essay, Remenyi offers a portrait of Saroyan, emphasizing the influence his character and predilections had on his writing.

To create, stated Henrik Ibsen, means to set judgment upon one's self. This romantic definition of creativeness does not cripple the need of classical balance. By applying Ibsen's definition of creativeness, William Saroyan's works explain much of himself. They reveal an extrovert using writing as a means for his most intense expression; thus he can keep pace with a pragmatic and incongruous world which is rather indifferent to the carefree design of an imaginative fervor. Born thirty-five years ago in the Fresno section of California, in a home close to a vineyard district, and brought up in Armenian immigrant surroundings, possessing a background that knew strangeness, sorrow, poverty, and joy, his growth was conditioned...