This
paper reviews and examines James Cain's "Mildred Pierce" and Nathanael West's "The Day of the Locust." Both authors give a detailed view of Los Angeles, which has been shaped by various writers over the years, as well as by
film and television depictions of the city. The
writer of this paper analyzes both authors' perception of 1930s L.A. which was a different sort of city than it is today. Los Angeles in the 1930s was a city beset by a
corrupt administration in City Hall, a corrupt police department and a citizenry, affected as was the rest of the country, by the economic failures of the Great Depression. This paper reviews Nathanael West's "The Day of the Locust" which is a
realistic portrayal of a sub-culture in Hollywood in the 1930s which includes a non-realistic vision of the horror hiding behind the surface in that society. The writer contends that in West's novel, Hollywood represents a target, the place where people flocking to the city believe their dreams can be fulfilled if only they could get hired and be seen by the public. The writer also discusses the issue of social class as an important motivating force in the plot of Cain's "Mildred Pierce." The writer of this paper details the plots and main characters of both novels.
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