The story “The Happy Island” has a very interesting author
who led a very interesting life, Dawn Powell. The story took place in the
1930’s which was an extremely important decade and it had a lot to do with
advances in history. In order to gain a better understanding of the book, information about the author, the time period and about the actual book, must be talked about. The Happy Island depicted the 1930’s quite well, and
the story compared a little with the author’s life.
Dawn Powell led a very dramatic and almost story-like life.
She was born in 1896, in Mount Gilead, Ohio; she was a middle child of
three girls. When she was seven her mother died having an abortion. Her
father was an alcoholic salesman, who was never home, and eventually left
the family with their wicked stepmother. Her stepmother forced Phyllis, one
of Powell’s sisters, to change the outfit of a premature newborns clothes
with the dress of Phyllises only doll. At the age of 13 Powell was already
educated but forbidden to attend High school by her stepmother so she ran
away from home to live with her aunt Orpha May, in Shelby, Ohio. She
sweet talked herself into a work-study scholarship at Lake Erie College for
women, then she moved to Manhattan in 1918. Eventually Powell met
Joseph Goushan got married and moved to Greenwich Village. Her son
Joseph Goushan jr. “jojo” was thought to be retarded, but actually had
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Autism which had not been identified in that time period. After she became well known and friends with other writers like Hemingway stardom got to her head like when she said that she wrote, “because there is no one to talk
to.” She was brutal in exposing posers and had a nasty wit, but she stayed
nice and loyal to her family and was never a snob. Powell wrote thirteen novels and a couple of plays. Some of her novels included, Turn the Magic Wheel, Time to be Born, The Locusts Have No King, and The Happy Island, in which some were written during the Depression. Powell wrote steadily and mostly wrote comedies
Many events occurred in the 1930’s. In October 1929 a sharp drop in
stock markets began the Great Depression, production and employment
declined rapidly in the United States until the middle of the 1930’s in which
it recovered somewhat and then dropped again. At one point about 1/3 of
Americans were out of work. In the late 1930’s and the beginning of
1940’s war frenzy broke out and Americans began production weapons and
other things for World War 2 and ended the Great Depression. On
September 1, 1939, the German army invaded Poland. Two days later Great
Britain and France, Poland’s allies responded by declaring war on Germany, and started WW2. In 1939 Hitler released his book “Mein Kampf” meaning
“My Struggle”.
Entertainment was a big industry in the 1930’s. Walt Disney first came up with his character Mickey Mouse along with the beginning of
the Mickey Mouse Club, which had members like Franklin D. Roosevelt and
King George V of England. Around 1931 the first color cartoon of Mickey
Mouse was released and later won an academy award in 1932. Walt
Disney’s biggest movies were made in the 1930’s like Snow White, Bambi,
Pinocchio, and Fantasia. After Hitler invaded Poland in 1939 Walt Disney
lost his funding from overseas and had some hard times but later got back up
on his feet and started making movies again. In 1938 “The Adventures of
Robin Hood” one of the greatest movies of all times, was made by Frich
Wolfgang Kiorngold. Swing Dancing was big in the 1930’s everybody got
into it, mainly because it was something fun to do during the depression. The
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first drive in Movie Theater was also introduced in the 1930’s. Basically
many developments in entertainment occurred during the depression to try
and get out of the depression.
The 1930s introduced a lot of medical advances due to the
depression and the second world war. German and French scientists showed
that sulfonamide was good in treating streptococcal bacteria infection, this
led to the first of the wonder drugs, the sulfonamide antibiotics. In 1938
Howard Florey and Ernst Chain purified penicillin. Growing viruses in
laboratory’s, in the 1930’s, led to vaccines against viral disease, like the
vaccine for Yellow Fever. Surgery in the 1930’s was advanced with the
Heart Lung Machine, which made it possible to stop and restart the heart
during surgery. Endoscopes, which were small fiber-optic instruments, led to
the new field of minimally invasive surgery, with this new technology it was
possible to remove a diseased appendix and other organs. Transfusions of
blood and other types of transfusions went into effect in the 1930’s. Studies
in mental illnesses came up with Lobotomies in 1935 and Electroconvulsive therapy in1938.
The Happy Island was a story that focused on the music
and entertainment of the 1930’s. The story is mainly about a man, Jefferson
Abbot, who goes to New York in search of his childhood love, Prudence
Bly. Prudence was a nightclub singer in New York. Jefferson was
introduced, along his way to Prudence’s nightclub friends. Jefferson is
overwhelmed with the lifestyle of New York nightlife and moves back to
Ohio and hopes that Prudence would stay with him there.
This Story reflects on Dawn Powell’s life in a few aspects, for example, Jefferson left Ohio to go to New York in hopes of expanding his horizons. Dawn Powell also left Ohio to expand her horizons and ended up in New York. Both Jefferson and Powell fell in love in New York. Jefferson was introduced to friend’s influential in the entertainment business. Because Powell was an author she made many friends influential in the writing business.
Dawn Powell was a good author and led a good life. The 1930’s had a lot of events that occurred that influenced history for the better and for the worse. “The Happy Island” was a good book that depicted the time period it was written in very well.
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Mary Flannery O’connor wrote two short stories entitled “Good Country People” and “Revelation”. O’conner displays similarities between the characters and the differences in the role they play at the end of their stories. Inside the two short stories are four characters, Joy and Manly Pointer from “Good country people” and Mary Grace and Mrs. Turpin ...
Bibliography
The Happy Island by Dawn Powell
www.drexel.edu/top/prin/txt/Intro/GtDepress.html
www.swarthmore.edu/humanities/pschmid1/engl52a/powell.html
www.filmsite.org/adve.html
Encarta Learning Zone Encyclopedia – Medicine
www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/german.html
waltdisney.com-walt’s story
www.members.tripod.com/~DeanCollins/history.html
