Chester Himes’ If He Hollers Let Him Go and God’s Little Acre by Erskin

Chester Himes If He Hollers allow Him Go and graven images petty(a) Acre by Erskine CaldwellIt has long been contend that plant of great Literature have certain qualities and that they belong to an undivided gageon of works. Value is placed upon them for a number of reasons, including their reflection of heathen or social movements, the special meaning they possess, and even their use of precise narrative elements. Up until recently, scholars and intellectuals would never dream of examining works of lower gage with any hopes of discovering value or merit. A new movement at privy intellectual circles, however, has shifted focus onto so-called low-brow novels like Chester Himes If He Hollers Let Him Go and Gods Little Acre by Erskine Caldwell. Surprisingly enough, the works of Himes and Caldwell can be held up to the same tests as more canonical works through their appeal to ideological remnants of Romanticism and the Enlightenment, their use of literary devices to pi ss meaning, and the narratives use of these devises to enhance the elements of enjoyment and pleasure in reading. According to the memorial books, the era of Romanticism and the subsequent Enlightenment have long since past, just their far-reaching effects are still evident in literature create verbally in the 20th century. The importance of human merit and worth root in Romantic thought has transcended the bounds of time and manifested itself in the novels of Caldwell and Himes through a preoccupation with what it means to be human. In Gods Little Acre, not only are readers prone to question whether or not the Walden family is subhuman because of their problematic behaviors, but the character of Buck remarks that God put us in the bodies of animals and ... ...e insight to life or make up certain meanings that the reader must reconstruct in order to measure the text fully. Other novels are considered to be noteworthy because they exist within a specific literary mo vement, or because they reflect cultural change. tho much one might argue that Erskine Caldwells Gods Little Acre and Chester Himes If He Hollers Let Him Go belong at the bottom of the literary stack, they nevertheless employ the same concepts and exhibit the same characteristics that plication many other novels into works of ideal greatness. Works CitedBrooks, Peter. Reading for the mend Design & Intention in Narrative. Cambridge, MA Harvard UP, 1984. Erskine, Caldwell. Gods Little Acre. pertly York, NY New American Library, Inc., 1933. Himes, Chester. If He Hollers Let Him Go. New York, NY New American Library, Inc., 1945.