New York in literature

Научное общество учащихся «Эврика»

Муниципальное бюджетное образовательное учреждение

«Школа № 41»

Канавинского района г. Нижнего Новгорода

New York in Literature

Выполнила: Минеева Алина

ученица 10Э класса

Научный руководитель:

Городжпнова О.М.,

учитель английского языка

Нижний Новгород

2018

Table of Contents

Introduction…………………………………………………………….... 2

1. New York; a City like No Other
2. The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald and  John Dos Passos's Manhattan Transfer were inspired by New York City
3. Russians in New York. America Through Russian Eyes.
4. Literary comparison of “Great Gatsby” and “The city of the yellow Devil”

Conclusion

References

Introduction

Few cities have inspired as much great writing as New York.

Philip Lopate

From its beginnings as a Dutch Colony in the 16th century, a British port in the 17th and 18th centuries, a colonial capital in the Revolutionary War, a center of industry and trade from the 19th century to the modern day, and to its current position as a center of world finance, information, and fashion, New York City has long occupied the imagination of individuals around the world. It has also figured prominently in American Literature. Whether it is merely the setting, the place characters aspire to live, or a character itself, New York has intrigued and fascinated American writers for centuries. In this course, we will attempt to “read” the city by considering how New York has been represented in American literature from the late-18th century through the early 21st century. Further, we will explore the developing field of City Studies, a branch of American studies that considers ideas about cities from the social sciences and applies those ideas to other disciplines.

“The most extravagant of cities,” “that sprawling metropolis,” “mongrel    Manhattan”, “The City of the Yellow Devil”—these are some of the phrases used to describe New York over its four hundred year history.

New York City may be a little full of itself. It may be the tiniest bit arrogant. It may even be a loudmouth narcissist strutting around like the world is its catwalk. But it’s not easy to keep round-the-clock flattery from going to your head – and New York has earned its rank among the cultural capitals of the planet.

The literary domain is no exception: For hundreds of years, New York City has cultivated genius of the superlative variety, from Washington Irving, the first New York author to establish an international reputation, to Walt Whitman, Stephen Crane, Henry James, and Tom Wolfe, the narratives in this work examine and bring the Big Apple to life in exciting and interesting ways.

• Why does New York figure so prominently in American literature?
• How do representations of New York vary in the approximately 250 years we will be considering?  
• How do representations of New York vary based on an author’s race, class, or gender?
• How do urban design and architectural theory influence literary representations of the city?
• How is the city’s history charted (and, perhaps, challenged) through literature?

This thesis can be considered as a literary journey through the notable moments of New York City. The thesis is divided into four chapters. In the first chapter, I will specifically focus on New York City and its influence on writers. I will show that New York, due to its openness, intensity and the sheer variety of its urban landscape can be alienated. The work reviews two approaches to the description of a city: humanistic and alienated.

In the second chapter, I will turn to the works of F.S. Fitzgerald and D. Dos Passos, demonstrating that the literary component is one of the major parts in creating of the culturological image of the city.

The third part is devoted to the study of artistic responses of Russian writers who visited the USA in the 20th century. Some books appeared in critical field of American scientists: “The City of Yellow Devil” by M.Gorky, “Iron Mirgorod” by S.Yesenin, “My Discovery of America” by V.Mayakovsky.

The fourth part of our investigation is devoted to the comparison of two works: “The city of the yellow devil” by Gorky and “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald. In this chapter we will try to find differences and similarities in these works.

Two approaches in the description of the New York city are shown in the represented work. The literary works of American and Russian writers are carefully analyzed and double vision on the image of the city is shown.

1. New York; a City like No Other

In 1988, the French historian Michel De Certeau, provided an aerial description of Manhattan that well represents the exceptionality of the urban geography of the city.

“Beneath the haze stirred up by the winds, the urban island, a sea in the middle of the sea, lifts up the skyscrapers over Wall Street, sinks down at Greenwich, then rises again to the crests of Midtown, quietly passes over Central Park and finally undulates off into the distance beyond Harlem. A wave of verticals. Its agitation is momentarily arrested by vision. The gigantic mass is immobilized before the eyes. It is transformed into a texturology in which extremes coincide- extremes of ambition and degradation brutal oppositions of races and styles, contrasts between yesterday’s buildings, already transformed into trash cans, and today’s urban eruptions that block out its space”^[1] .

This outstanding description of Manhattan from the 110th floor of The World Trade Center (Figure 3) conveys the idea of an overwhelming and almost discomforting view. Any observer would remain breathless and astonished by the innumerable contrasts of this city. It is then evident how New York distinguishes itself from every other city in the world through its verticality and uniqueness. If Paris was the capital of European modernity at the turn of the century, New York City is now the essence of modernity par excellence. It is the city that “overwhelms the imagination and numbs the mind”^[2] .

Before analyzing those aspects that characterize New York’s distinctiveness, it is essential to look at the origin and history of Manhattan itself as it is also part of the city’s exceptionality. Historians have argued that New York’s diversity and heterogeneity lie in its original founding made by the Dutch in 1664. The first inhabitants of the area, the Arloquins, chose the name that would characterize the city. The name Manhattan comes from the union of two words Man-Hatta that literally mean “land of many hills”. The first discovery of the island and its first white settlement happened by chance. In 1609, Henry Hudson was searching for a Northwest passage to the straits of Asia and the Orient. His quest miserably failed and he finally made landfall in New York’s harbour on September 3rd of that year. Hudson immediately understood the uniqueness of the island’s position, whose harbour would soon become its main economic strength. New York was finally colonized by the first Dutch settlement in 1624.

The “company town” of New Amsterdam- this was the name given to New York by its first Dutch settlers- was not as profitable as expected. In 1653 Dutch Law finally proclaimed the independence of the island of New Amsterdam. The end of Dutch colonization dates back to 1664 when another country drew its attention to the island of Manhattan, the British Empire. The English were also responsible for the final end of Dutch colonizers who were subdued in their rivalry with the British and thus left the supremacy to England. The second half of the 17th century marks the beginning of the British dominion of the city of New Amsterdam, finally renamed New York as an affiliate colony of the British city of York.At the time, New York was already ranked among the most important commercial colonies in the world in both size and importance. Despite its heterogeneity and vastness in the 1700s, New York was a difficult city. “Political power and the economy were concentrated in the hands of the few”^[3] . However, there was one peculiarity that emerged at the time and, as we will see, still today is one of New York’s most important characteristics: its multiculturalism. Since the second half of the 18th century, an intense multicultural mix of people, due to the presence of racial and ethnical communities, populated the city. In 1760, New York had the largestconcentration of slaves among the Northern colonies and more than seventeen per cent of its residents were blacks.

Grasping the meaning of a possible definitive supremacy of the British Empire, George Washington fought the British army. The American resistance caused a period of bloody battles at the margins of Manhattan in areas such as Brooklyn. In 1777 the British were finally confined to a few areas outside New York with small outposts in New Jersey. The conclusion of the war with the proclamation of the American Independence posed an end to the British dominion and New York was chosen as the new nation’s capital in 1785. Its national importance ceased only five years later in 1790 when Washington D.C was chosen as the nation’s capital city. In the period between the American Revolution and the Civil War, New York urban greatness increased enormouslyIn 1830 Gotham, as Washington Irving called it, was characterized by a varied and dense population that grew extensively throughout the century and its extensive immigration persists even today. Since then, “New York State burst forward to become the largest, most populous and most industrial of American States” (Jackson and Dunbar, 2002: 102). Later on, the city started its ever-changing metamorphosis that inevitably led to the expansion of the metropolis. Tracing the roots of New York’s origin by looking at the evolution of Manhattan from Natural Wonder to Urban Island, we can understand the importance of this city and its point of contention for dominion. New York has always been unique in its strategic position, its wide extension and its ability to become the centre for the new ethnicities that arrived in the new land.

So what are the characteristics of New York? What is the secret of its exceptionality? What are the secrets of its magnetism and the reason for its attractiveness for writers?

First, there is diversity and heterogeneity. Kenneth Jackson and David Dunbar consider diversity one of the fundamental traits that makes New York exceptional. They state, “New York has always been incredibly diverse, it has become multiracial, multicultural and multireligious”. Since its main growth at the beginning of the 20th century, New York has always been a city of immigrants, a melting pot of ethnicities that blended different races and religions. Even today, there is no doubt that every ethnic, racial and religious group has established its community in New York City. That is to say that the city is a place where cultures are intertwined and influence one another. As Jacob Riis noted in the late 1800s in reference to the city’s heterogeneity and cultural mixture, “a map of the city, colored to designate nationalities, would show more stripes than on the skin of a zebra, and more colours than any rainbow”^[4] .

Another example of the city’s multiculturalism is the variety of languages spoken in New York. Even today, we hear people speaking all sorts of languages and it is also common to see advertisements in other languages, such as Spanish, or even to see supporting ads in favour of other ethnicities. In the late 1640s, eighteen languages where already spoken in the city. Since then, New York’s cultural mixture has grown enormously and its multiculturalism is one of its strong points. Because of its cultural diversity, the city asks its residents to switch back and forth between essential issues of identity. As Jackson and Dunbar assert,

“New York doesn’t really celebrate difference as much as it demands a constant questioning and remaking across lines of class, race, ethnicity, religion, and sexual orientation. New York always holds the possibility of the reinvention of the self to achieve one’s own aspirations; it allows you to plumb the depths of your most authentic being, to see both the city itself and your own self in new original ways”.

The city’s close contact with diverse races and cultures enables its residents to question their own self. The city’s residents discover new selves as they are also able to grasp the meaning of difference. In other words, they see themselves and the city from a new perspective.

Second, there is tolerance. “Diversity has led to a grudging acceptance of difference. Residents control and subdue their prejudices. Cultures manage to coexist in peace”. Thanks to its multiculturalism, New York accepts people of different ethnicities, religion and skin colours with no discrimination. In New York, more than in any other city, there is an acceptance of “otherness”. New Yorkers live, work and walk with multicultural people, being somehow indifferent to the city’s ethnic variety. “Unlike most places that demand a certain elapsed time period before one is considered a native, New York is democratic. If you can walk the walk and talk the talk you are a New Yorker”.

In New York City tolerance is always necessary. As American writer and New Yorker E.B. White once explained, “the citizens of New York are tolerant not only from disposition but from necessity. The city has to be tolerant, otherwise it would explode in a radioactive cloud of hate and rancour and bigotry”^[5]. The coexistence of diverse groups, led to the formation of specific ghettos or neighbourhoods that still today represent one of the main characteristics of the variety of this city. Some examples are the Lower East Side, which was home to a flourishing community of Jews and Harlem, home of the African-Americans.As a consequence of this diversity, there was the creation of specific areas shaped by and built for different cultures. In New York’s multicultural neighbourhoods, visitors have the feeling of being suddenly transported into another country. Chinatown and Little Italy are two of the best examples of the tolerance of different cultures in the city. Even New York’s landscape has been adapted and changed in order to dedicate part of its “Americaness” to other ethnicities. Compared to rest of the city, both neighbourhoods are architecturally shaped by different cultures. In both, Chinatown and Little Italy, the city abandons the geometrical verticality of skyscrapers and it is organized into narrower streets and smaller buildings.

The acceptance of difference brought an enormous sense of freedom to those communities that felt the need and the right to freely express themselves. This openness to diversity and freedom of expression led to the emergence of important cultural phenomena such as the Harlem Renaissance for African-American literature or the popularization of Jazz music. Both genres were in fact born in New York. The city’s circumstances force residents to eliminate and avoid their prejudices. As a consequence to this openness Jackson and Dunbar affirm that,“The real beauty of New York is that it has also kept alive a part of the national mythology. Individualism, the land of the free, rags to riches, and the melting pot were all characteristics that demanded a frontier stage to enact their dramas. If we are to look to a city that most realistically maintains yet questions fundamental American traits… it is New York” .

This quote explains how New York maintains the American creed, respecting important values such as individualism, freedom, equality and tolerance. Yet, “More than any other city, New York is about the promise and possibility of what the particular American destiny and multiculturalism might be”.

A third important characteristic is the city’s tempo. Everything is faster and tougher in New York, “if you can make it here, you’ll make it anywhere” sang Frank Sinatra. “People in New York walk faster, eat later, work harder and compete more than most other Americans” . It is a city where everyone is constantly put to the test and pushed to be more. Living in New York is to learn to “walk” at the same fast and chaotic rhythm as the other people on the street. This also explains foreigners feeling of being overwhelmed when walking through the endless avenues of New York for the first time and learning to adapt to the city’s frenetic rhythm.

The fourth important element is its iconic landscape. Because of its popularization and appearance in movies and pictures, the skyline of New York is impossible to confuse with any other. The famous iconicity of the city makes it familiar everywhere. New York’s singularity is mainly due to the creation of its well-known buildings, impressed upon the mind of every visitor. In the middle of the 20th century, the city was a concentration of famous buildings such as the Brooklyn Bridge, the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building and later on, the World Trade Center, which were among the tallest buildings in the world. The fact of being diverse but accepted while strolling through the familiar and iconic landscape of Manhattan makes people feel at home and everyone easily finds his own place in the city.

The fifth element is New York’s density. From the first immigrations and settlements, the city has always been overcrowded. “Relative to other American cities, New York has been overcrowded ever since the Dutch settlers huddled together below Wall Street for protection” (2002: 3). The most astonishing consequence of its density is the regularly concentration of people in the neighbourhoods, the streets and the subway. The density of people per square mile in Manhattan is enormous, approximately 65,000 per square mile. Consequently, more than any in other city in the world, New York is the city of the crowd. Thanks to its density and concentration of people, the city offers anonymity and loneliness simultaneously.

Let us now consider examples of famous New York flâneurs, following their footsteps within the city, re-iterating their changes from the past up to the present. In doing so, we will also analyze their changes in the historical moment of their strolling.

In fact, every great American author in recent history, if not a New York native, has dwelled in the city for at least a short period of time. Of course, the pulling-factor that makes New York City so inviting to artists is its sheer reach, both in geography and spirit. Freedom to choose.  Freedom to change.  Freedom to be. This is what New York has not only always allowed, but encouraged. The city’s rich tapestry promotes diversity and distinction, making way for colorful self-expression across the spectrum of age, gender, race and occupation.

The literature of New York is representative of American national identity and of the unique nature of the metropolitan, urban experience. New York can be seen as the embodiment of the American dream, at least in theory, of liberty, equality and opportunity. In its four hundred year history from Henry Hudson’s voyage across the Hudson River in 1609, New York City has emerged as a significant commercial and cultural capital of the world. The first internationally recognized

American writer in the nineteenth-century, Washington Irving, was himself a New Yorker who wrote a satiric treatment in his History of New York as well as haunting tales of the landscape and legend of the Hudson River Valley in The Sketchbook. The self-proclaimed American national poet and great “democratic bard,” Walt Whitman, “of Manhattan the son” famously catalogues and celebrates the rich diversity of the city, where prostitutes and presidents, patricians and beggars, Native Americans, blacks, and whites, men and women speak in the unified voice of the “democratic En-Masse.” Herman Melville anticipates the modern sense of the alienation of the individual brought by urbanization and industrialization.

Realist writers like Edith Wharton and Henry James express the Gilded Age anxiety and nostalgia for the “old New York” aristocracy with the^[a][b] influx of immigrants and the rise of a new mercantile and industrial class in New York at the turn of the nineteenth-century. The contradictory nature of New York and the American dream find full expression in the post World War I literature of the 1920s. Writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald express the disillusionment of the “lost generation” while capturing the excess and exhilaration associated with the Jazz Age.

In this era of prohibition, bootlegging, speakeasies, birth control, women’s suffrage there was an air of permissiveness and gaiety that found expression in the literature and culture of New York. From the flowering of African-American literature with Harlem Renaissance writers like Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, Zora Neale Hurston, Nella Larsen and James Weldon Johnston to the growth of publishing houses and magazines like Vanity Fair and The New Yorker and the literary coterie surrounding the Algonquin Round Table in Midtown Manhattan including DorothyParker, Robert Benchley, Alexander Woollcott, and F.P. Adams to theflourishing of little magazines and the café culture in Greenwich Villageincluding poets Edna St. Vincent Millay and Marianne Moore, New York emerged as a significant cultural and financial center.

With the stock market crash of 1929 and the Depression that followed,

the literary history of New York pointed to a sense of crisis and despair in

such later works as F.Scott Fitzgerald’s The Crack-Up essays. There

emerged in the 1930s a literature of social consciousness and protest

heightened by the immigrant experience and urban decay of the city.

Writers like Anzia Yezierska, Henry Roth, Michael Gold and Daniel

Fuchs expressed the conflict of assimilation and identity of the Jewish-

American immigrant experience. In the 1930s and 40s New York City

distinguished itself as an intellectual center with the rise of the so-called

“New York intellectuals,” a largely Jewish group of immigrants many of

whom were educated at City College and Columbia University with a

cosmopolitan outlook, modernist sensibility, and leftist political leanings,

many of whom were associated with liberal magazines like Partisan

Review and Commentary. The New York intellectuals included writers

and critics like Irving Howe, Alfred Kazin, Lionel Trilling, Delmore

Schwartz, and Philip Rahv. With the rise of fascism in Nazi Germany and

totalitarianism in Stalinist Russia, many of the New York intellectuals

suffered disillusionment with Marxism and turned toward revisionist

liberalism and liberal anti-Communism.

2. “The Great Gatsby” by Fitzgerald and  John Dos Passos's “Manhattan Transfer” were inspired by New York City

From the "gilded age" of Edith Wharton and Henry James to the rhythms of the Harlem Renaissance and Beat poets, writers have long been drawn to the east coast's biggest city.

For all the heiresses and eminently acceptable suitors of the fin de siècle, the quintessential New York novel of money must surely be Fitzgerald's “The Great Gatsby”. It's definitely the book to read on the first approach: "Over the great bridge, with the sunlight through the girders making a constant flicker upon the moving cars, with the city rising up across the river in white heaps and sugar lumps all built with a wish out of non-olfactory money. The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world".

The Great Gatsby is set in real-life New York City and environs (in the 1920s, of course). Gatsby, the Buchanans, and Nick Carraway live in East Egg and West Egg, Long Island (inspired either by Great Neck or by Westport, Connecticut, where Fitzgerald lived briefly).Nick, Tom, and Gatsby return to Manhattan regularly (if not daily) for work or “business.” And the revelers who converge on Gatsby’s parties are New Yorkers.

Gatsby’s particular mansion might be fictionalized. But lavish estates like his still exist in Long Island and the tri-state area. Wealthy New Yorkers continue to spend astounding sums on these status symbols, and Manhattanites still flock to the expensive, extravagant parties designed to both impress… and be featured in the press.

And, of course, many of the novel’s key events take place within New York City. Fitzgerald lived in Manhattan, so he knew it intimately. Scott and Zelda’s antics in NYC are legendary; they caroused at wild parties, rode on top of taxis on 5th Avenue, danced on tables at the Waldorf, and leapt into the Pulitzer Fountain outside the Plaza.

“I remember riding in a taxi one afternoon between very tall buildings under a mauve and rosy sky,” Fitzgerald wrote. “I began to bawl because I had everything I wanted and knew I would never be so happy again.”

It’s unsurprising, therefore, that Fitzgerald used New York as the setting for his first three novels and for many of his stories.

Fitzgerald crafted his New York Gatsby scenes with detail and eloquence. Here are the locations of some of his most famous scenes!

Initially NY is presented in a very positive light. On Nick's first trip there with Tom, the city is described as having "glowing sunshine," and the air on Fifth Avenue is "warm and soft, almost pastoral," Ch. 2. The city is again put in a positive light when he returns with Gatsby, "Over the great bridge, with sunlight through the girders making a constant flicker upon the moving cars, with the city rising up in white heaps and sugar lumps....is always the city seen for the first time, in it's first wild promise of all the beauty and mystery in the world." Ch.4. This changes when Tom and Gatsby arrive in NY together later in the novel. Now Daisy complains that the city is "so hot," and the room they are in "was large and stifling," and " opening the windows admitted only a gust of hot shrubbery from the park." The perception of the city changes in proportion to the amount of conflict that the characters bring with them.

As Fitzgerald saw it (and as Nick explains in Chapter 9), the American dream was originally about discovery, individualism, and the pursuit of happiness. In the 1920s depicted in the novel, however, easy money and relaxed social values have corrupted this dream, especially on the East Coast. The main plotline of the novel reflects this assessment, as Gatsby’s dream of loving Daisy is ruined by the difference in their respective social statuses, his resorting to crime to make enough money to impress her, and the rampant materialism that characterizes her lifestyle. Additionally, places and objects in The Great Gatsby have meaning only because characters instill them with meaning: the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg best exemplify this idea. In Nick’s mind, the ability to create meaningful symbols constitutes a central component of the American dream, as early Americans invested their new nation with their own ideals and values.

Nick compares the green bulk of America rising from the ocean to the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. Just as Americans have given America meaning through their dreams for their own lives, Gatsby instills Daisy with a kind of idealized perfection that she neither deserves nor possesses. Gatsby’s dream is ruined by the unworthiness of its object, just as the American dream in the 1920s is ruined by the unworthiness of its object—money and pleasure. Like 1920s Americans in general, fruitlessly seeking a bygone era in which their dreams had value, Gatsby longs to re-create a vanished past—his time in Louisville with Daisy—but is incapable of doing so. When his dream crumbles, all that is left for Gatsby to do is die; all Nick can do is move back to Minnesota, where American values have not decayed.

One of the major topics explored in The Great Gatsby is the sociology of wealth, specifically, how the newly minted millionaires of the 1920s differ from and relate to the old aristocracy of the country’s richest families. In the novel, West Egg and its denizens represent the newly rich, while East Egg and its denizens, especially Daisy and Tom, represent the old aristocracy. Fitzgerald portrays the newly rich as being vulgar, gaudy, ostentatious, and lacking in social graces and taste. Gatsby, for example, lives in a monstrously ornate mansion, wears a pink suit, drives a Rolls-Royce, and does not pick up on subtle social signals, such as the insincerity of the Sloanes’ invitation to lunch. In contrast, the old aristocracy possesses grace, taste, subtlety, and elegance, epitomized by the Buchanans’ tasteful home and the flowing white dresses of Daisy and Jordan Baker.

Location, Location, Location

Many of us are familiar with the phrase: 'location is everything'. Usually, it refers to the notion that identical houses in two different neighborhoods may not have identical values. For example, the one located in the more desirable spot may be more valuable. So, what makes one neighborhood better than another?

Think about your own city or town. Is there a wealthy area? How about a poor area? Do the residents have different political or religious views from those in a neighboring city or town; are they considered 'better' than their neighbors?

F. Scott Fitzgerald

These are some of the questions raised by the American author, F. Scott Fitzgerald, in his novel, The Great Gatsby. Although a work of fiction, its respective East Egg and West Egg locations are based on real-life peninsulas and towns on the North Shore of  Long Island in New York State.

The Great Gatsby follows the lives of several characters through a 1922 summer on Long Island. The author uses the events depicted in the book to make a statement about the shifting moral attitudes that characterized 1920s America, a period often referred to as the Roaring 20s because of its dramatic cultural, economic and political developments.

Jay Gatsby, the main character in the novel, is a man of great wealth who lives in a mansion in West Egg. His nemesis, Tom Buchanan, also a man of great wealth, lives in on an East Egg estate with his wife, Daisy, with whom Gatsby had once been involved and whom he hopes to win back. Tom Buchanan comes from a historically rich family, while Jay Gatsby comes from a very poor family. Tom Buchanan represents high society and class, while Jay Gatsby, a former bootlegger, creates the illusion of social standing, despite the fact that his wealth now rivals that of his nemesis.

These cosmetic differences have absolutely nothing to do with Gatsby's or Buchanan's moral character and everything to do with social class. For example, Tom Buchanan is a rather ruthless, immoral and greedy man, while Gatsby is loyal, kind hearted and tender. As such, the two men represent the harsh socioeconomic hierarchy that existed in America during the period. The differences between them play out as Daisy, whose heart belongs to Gatsby, sacrifices true love for the wealth and social standing that life as Tom Buchanan's wife provides.

In The Great Gatsby, Tom Buchanan's old money endowed him with a good name and status with which Jay Gatsby and his new money could not compete. Let's take a closer at the West Egg as a symbol of these divisions.

East Egg, the Buchanan's home, is the land of the rich and famous; only the best of the best live in East Egg. Sprawling lawns and magnificent estates sparkle and shine under the care of maids and butlers, while the extremely wealthy and important owners relax in style.

East Egg and West Egg Peninsulas on Long Island (shown in dark orange on the upper left)

West Egg, on the other hand, home to the newly rich, is much less desirable and represents unlawful behavior and social climbing. Its homes are not as refined and glorious as those of East Egg. Many of the residents, like Jay Gatsby, have made it big through illegal or socially unaccepted means, such as bootlegging alcohol or gambling. Unfortunately, their new money cannot buy them the respect or acceptance of the East Eggers.

John Dos Passos

Very few cities have inspired as much great literature as the Big Apple. Most American readers will remember a few passages from “Manhattan Transfer” by in 1925.

Another critique of consumer capitalism and the American dream, published in the same year as Gatsby, is John Dos Passos's Manhattan Transfer, the novel which preceded his great USA trilogy. Start reading the book in the centre of Times Square: it's a novel where everybody is in a constant rush (it was written at the same time as FW Taylor demanded Down with Dawdling), and Dos Passos splices the narrative with texts from the surface of the city: adverts, newspaper headlines, signposts. Accepting the Feltinelli Prize in 1967, Dos Passos recalled that when he returned to the USA after years in Europe, "New York was the first thing that struck me. It was marvellous. It was hideous. It had to be described." Descriptions of the city certainly take centre stage in Manhattan Transfer; and the characters themselves fade until they form part of the background, blurring with City so that the social is mapped onto the topological. To me, the tension between the "marvellous" and "hideous" that Dos Passos identifies is indicative; his novel may begin as a critique of mindless consumerism and social apathy, yet you can't help but feel that it ends up a little in thrall to what DH Lawrence called New York's "wild, strange frenzy for success: egoistic, individualistic success".

3.Russians in New York

A dialogue between Russia and America started as early as in the nineteenth century. The topic of America sounds in the oeuvres by Pushkin, Küchelbecker, Odoyevsky, Herzen, Chernyshevsky, Leo Tolstoy and others. The most effective relationships between America and Russia were developing in the 20-s and 30-s of the twentieth century, especially after the establishment of diplomatic relations between the countries in November 1933.

Maksim Gorky, Sergei Yesenin, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Boris Pilniak, Ilya Ilf and Yevgeni Petrov visited the USA in the first half of the twentieth century before World War II. Each of them enriched his native literature with works of different genres on the topic connected with their stay in that country. American literary criticism paid attention to every single work of Russian writers devoted to America. In different years there appeared the monographs by Alayne Reily “America in Contemporary Soviet Literature”, Charles Rougle “Three Russians consider America”. America in the Works of Maksim Gorky, Sergey Esenin and Vladimir Mayakovsky”, Carrol Evince “Border Crossing. The Problem of Identity of the West and Russia in Soviet Literature 1917-1934”, Valentin Kiparsky “English and American Characters in Russian Fiction” and many others. As a rule, while analyzing literary relationships between Russia and America, the USA critics engage in talk with the essay by A.M.Gorky “The City of Yellow Devil”. American researchers have different approaches to this work. Thus, in the article we make an attempt to explain our point of view on the contribution of Russian writers to the image of the USA in Russian literature.

Vladimir Mayakovsky

The image of the United States for the first time in Russian literature gets a clear political coloration in the works of Vladimir Mayakovsky. The writer compares the city with a giant machine and man in it with a cog in its mechanism. The city itself appears as a tangle of metal, wood, which is an endless chaos. Bitter not understand the meaning of signage, advertising, artificial illumination. He's not used to the splendor of excessive lighting, unacceptable symbol of consumerism. This city is for him the embodiment of the crowds, confusion, and fear. Even the first American impressions in letters to Gorky testify about how he was struck by the lack of spiritual life and excessive attachment to money of Americans. Created Bitter unflattering image of America changed for the worse perception of this country in Russia. He said on the way to America: "I used to America was closed, lightly cleaned, and then again opened - again" are primarily associated with the rejection of the social structure of the United States. It is not only prejudice, it is largely the result of propaganda of the 1920-ies, which is often referred to the idea of "world revolution."

"Discovering" America, Mayakovski, first of all, turns his eyes to the common man. And he is convinced that social inequality here is sharply divided society between the two poles: the pole of untold wealth and pole grinding poverty that a person with millions of dollars can afford almost everything, and a poor man is completely powerless. At the same time, Mayakovski admired the technical genius and creative courage of the American people, embodied in the reality of the futuristic dreams of the poet of industrialization. These feelings are reflected in his poem "Brooklyn Bridge", which is considered one of the best works of the cycle. Out of frustration in America, the poet had grown the belief that the future belongs to Russia, and this belief is summed up in his poem "the Americans wonder" (1929).

  America of the 1920-ies more westernized, but for Mayakovski, this is just a copy, a likeness of an industrially developed country. It is for him, illusory and dead. And this "death" is new York, filled with machines that rule over human life. The city - space of imaginary freedom, the embodiment of spiritual impoverishment resembling poet of pre-revolutionary Russia. America is seen by the author as unavoidably dying, has no future in the country.

 The Central idea of the entire cycle "Poems about America" is the idea that a trip abroad is a journey into the past, and the way of the future for all mankind has opened the proletarian revolution in Russia. This idea can be seen as the original ideological installation on the perception of the country and the General conclusion according to the results of her visit. Mayakovski describes America in detail, and focuses only on urban landscapes (mostly New York). The rest of America as she was introduced to Mayakovski narrows to one close of the metropolis.

Mayakovski visited such cities as: New York, Peekskill, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh during trip to USA. The cycle of poems consists of 22 poems, thematically and compositionally United and motivated by the journey of lyrical. Poems are a "travelogue" of a man traveling across America. The cycle "Poems about America" Mayakovski begins with the poems "Spain", "6 nuns", "Atlantic", "Shallow philosophy in deep places", "black & white".

Alexey Gorky

In Maxim Gorky’s “The City of the Yellow Devil”, his view of what New York City is, is made extremely clear to us as the readers through the strong stance that is taken, as well as through the voice within the entire chapter. Gorky’s opinion about New York City is that the city corrupts people, and is centered around money and obtaining money, so once you become a part of this city, you too will only live for money. “People have finished the days work and- never thinking of why it was done, or whether it was any use to them- hurry home to bed” (15). Gorky expresses how people only live for money and that the original identity of America has been lost. America which used to be the land of opportunities, of freedom to live, is now a land centered around the “Yellow Devil”.

When we normally think of immigrants coming to America, we think of the description of America as the land of opportunities. However Gorky provides us with an extremely different view America. His opinion on the American dream is made clear when he states things such as “Entering the city is like getting into a stomach of stone and iron, a stomach that has swallowed several million people and is grinding and digesting them”(9). Gorky is able to describe a moment that normally resembles hope and optimism, and creates a completely opposite feeling within the reader.

While reading this, we found Gorky’s voice to be pessimistic and disappointed. Gorky is looking down upon the city, and he doesn’t like what it has become. “This is a city. This is New York….A haughty pride in its height, and its ugliness is felt in each house. There are no flowers at the windows and no children to be seen”(8). He is disappointed that the city has lost its life, its exciting aspect, it has strictly become business. “They were taught to work, but not to live, and so the day of rest is a hard day for them…..Six days of the week life is simple. It is a huge machine, and they are all its cogs….But on the seventh day-the day of rest and idleness-life looms before him in a strange dismantled guise” (34).

From reading Gorky’s chapter, we see through his passionate word choice, and pessimistic and disappointed voice that he is not a fan of what the city is now, and through the use of many similies he conveys these feelings.

Gorky’s stance on this way of living in New York is extremely critical. He is describing his observations to the reader, and is trying to convince the reader that this is not the right way of living life.

Gorky’s voice is one of an infuriated witness.

Gorky uses a lot of support to strengthen his thesis throughout the piece. He uses many similes to further support his opinions. These similes are clearly full of emotion and strong opinions so they  allow the reader to understand Gorky’s perspective. Along with these similes, Gorky also uses vivid descriptions to create images of the city.

Sergey  Esenin

The New York of Gorky’s “City of the Yellow Devil” is a murky, leaden chaos, a monster of iron and stone whose roaring and wailing silence its inhabitants hypnotizing them into the submission of hard labor and uncomplaining misery.  It is a city, in short, of rapacious and oppressive capitalism. Through it all runs the force of the “yellow devil” the cruel drive to make money, which Gorky imagines as a spinning lump of gold located at the heart of the city.

Esenin was therefore responding as much to Gorky, and to Mayakovsky, as he was to New York city himself.

Esenin writes: “Buildings block out the horizon and almost push against the sky. Over all this extend the most enormous arches of reinforced concrete. The sky is leaden from fusing factory smokes – takes. The smoke evokes a feeling of mystery; beyond these buildings something so great and enormous is taking place. It takes your brief away.” Where Gorky’s New York is “”leaden” and “lifeless”, Esenin’s “leaden” and “brieftaking”.

4. Literary comparison of “Great Gatsby” and

“The city of the yellow Devil”

“Although M. Gorkey’s novel, The city of the yellow devil, was written in 1906, the theme can be compared to Fitzegerald’s TheGreat Gatsby written 20 years later.  Both writers give the description of  New York.

One of the major topics explored in The Great Gatsby is the sociology of wealth. Gorky is looking down upon the city, he is disappointed that the city has lost its life, its exciting aspect, it has strictly become business. “They were taught to work, but not to live, and so the day of rest is a hard day for them… It is a huge machine, and they are all its cogs….But on the seventh day-the day of rest and idleness-life looms before him in a strange dismantled guise”

It's hard to say whether  Fitzegerald was familiar with the work of Gorky, but in his works there is also an alienated image of New York.

From the first sight the image of the city seems different. Initially NY is presented in a very positive light by Fitzgerald: On Nick's first trip there with Tom, the city is described as having "glowing sunshine," and the air on Fifth Avenue is "warm and soft, almost pastoral. This changes when Daisy complains that the city is "so hot," and the room they are in "was large and stifling," and "opening the windows admitted only a gust of hot shrubbery from the park." The perception of the city changes in proportion to the amount of conflict that the characters bring with them.

Comparing these two works we find the differences in image of the city, but it’s necessary to say that there are a lot of similarities as well.(Appendix)

Conclusion

Writing about New York reverts again and again to the contrasts of the city.

• The city contradictory faces of glamour and squalor;
• Its man-made quality: the gigantic built environment and relative unimportance of nature;
• Its Mammon-like preoccupation with business and money-making, from the Dutch settlement to the present;
• Its large dense population, providing space if not always warmest of welcomes for the immigrants;
• Its fabled loneliness and alienation;
• Its addictive, temptress quality, which ensnares newcomers and convinces them – no matter how much they may suffer at its hands – that no place will do.

Two approaches in the description of the city are shown in the represented work. The literary works of Russian and American writers were carefully analyzed. Double vision on this problem is found out.

Whether expressing nostalgia for the past, hope for the future, fear of the unknown, or the possibility of self-actualization, the literature of New York continues to draw inspiration from its locale and is as complex, contradictory, and creative as the City itself.

References

1.Gorkiy, AM 1954, Works in 30 vols., Moscow, vol. 8.

2. Fitzgerald, FS 1996, Works in 3 vols., Moscow, vol. 3.

3. Paliyevsky, P. (1966). Experimental Literature. Literature and Theory. Voprosy Literatury. 8.

4. Reily, A. (1971). America in Contemporary Soviet Literature. New York University Press.

5. Rougle, Ch. (1976). Three Russians Consider America. Stockholm.

6. Sushkova, V. N. (2013). Russia – America: on the Crossroads of Literature of the twentieth century. Tyumen: Publishing House of Tyumen State

University.

Appendix