U.S.A. Trilogy - The Four Narrative Modes

The Four Narrative Modes

• In the fictional narrative sections, the U.S.A. trilogy relates the lives of twelve characters as they struggle to find a place in American society during the early part of the twentieth century. Each character is presented to the reader from their childhood on and in free indirect speech. While their lives are separate, characters occasionally meet. Some minor characters whose point of view is never given crop up in the background, forming a kind of bridge between the characters.

• "The Camera Eye" sections are written in 'stream of consciousness' and are an autobiographical Künstlerroman of Dos Passos, tracing the author's development from a child to a politically committed writer. Camera Eye 50 arguably contains the most famous line of the trilogy, when Dos Passos states upon the executions of Sacco and Vanzetti: "all right we are two nations."

• The "Newsreels" consist of front page headlines and article fragments from the Chicago Tribune for The 42nd Parallel, the New York World for Nineteen Nineteen and The Big Money, as well as lyrics from popular songs. Newsreel 66, preceding Camera Eye 50, announcing the Sacco and Vanzetti verdict, contains the lyrics of "The Internationale."

• The biographies are accounts of historical figures. The most often anthologized of these biographies is "The Body of an American", which tells the story of an unknown soldier who was killed in World War I which concludes Nineteen Nineteen.

The separation between these narrative modes is rather a stylistic than a thematic one. Some critics have pointed out connections between the fictional character Mary French in The Big Money and journalist Mary Heaton Vorse, calling into question the strict separation between fictional characters and biographies. Coherent quotes from newspaper articles are often woven into the biographies as well, calling into question the strict separation between them and the "Newsreel" sections.

The fragmented narrative style of the trilogy later influenced the work of British science-fiction novelist John Brunner.

Characters:

• Mac (Fainy McCreary) - A wandering printer, train-hopping newspaperman, and a crusader for the working man
• Janey Williams - A young stenographer from Washington, Dc (assistant to Moorehouse)
• Eleanor Stoddard - Works in Chicago at a laceshop
• J. Ward Moorehouse - A marketing man
• Charley Anderson - A mechanic
• Eveline Hutchins - Artist and interior decorator
• Mary Fench - Journalist and labor activist
• Margo Dowling - Actress/entertainer
• Joe Williams - A sailor, brother of Janey Williams

Dos Passos's perspective throughout the book is basically that he is portraying the everyday situations of the characters before, during, and after WWI. He explores their difficulty when trying to make a stable living for themselves as well as wanting to settle down in some means.