The Vintage Mencken | Objects, Setting & Important Places

The Vintage Mencken Objects/Places

Baltimore, Maryland

Baltimore is H. L. Mencken's lifelong home, and where he worked as a journalist for decades. Naturally he has a particular affection for it, especially the Baltimore of his youth, but he is never hesitant to call out and criticize the leaders of Baltimore for perceived folly or injustice.

Mark Twain's Huck Finn

This is book with which Mencken fell in love with reading. He would become a bookworm thereafter.

The Y.M.C.A.

This youth center would turn Mencken off to any sort of physical activity for the rest of his life.

Freudian Psychoanalysis

Freud is dismissed as a quack by Mencken, except for one by-product of Freud's theories: that lying is an unconscious and uncontrollable act. Mencken claims that people are in a constant state of lying, falsely portraying themselves so as to appear in a better light.

Democracy

Mencken has a distaste for democracy, as it relies on men envying other men, and subsequent efforts to make the...
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