Dos Passos, John Roderigo (1896-1970) Born in Chicago of Portuguese descent, Dos Passos was educated in America and abroad, graduating from Harvard in 1916.Intending to study Architecture in Spain, he soon signed up in World War 1, first serving with French and subsequently in the US medical corps.
Three Soldiers (1921), in his first novel, related the war’s devastating effect on the lives of three US army privates. In Manhattan Transfer (1925) Dos Passos first attempted a panoramic rendering of social life and problems by depicting a large number of unrelated New York characters in numerous episodes.
This approach was fully developed in his major work, the trilogy U.S.A (collected 1938) which consists of 42nd Parallel (1930), 1919 (1932), and The Big Money (1936). The nation itself, from 1900 to 1930, becomes the main character of the narratives and is portrayed critically as a materialistic society in decline. Episodes in which the lives of historical figures form a part are supported by such devices as the ‘Newsreel’ sections, establishing an authentic period atmosphere by quoting newspaper headlines, popular songs, etc., and ‘The camera Eye’ stream of consciousness, reflecting the author’s interpretation if events.
Dos Passos’s work after U.S.A became increasingly conservative. A second trilogy, District of Columbia (collected 1952), is concerned with political disillusionment, and conservation of his essays, The Theme is Freedom (1956), and his historical writings Men Who Made the Nation (1957), is even more pronounced. Mr. Wilson’s War (1963), he returned, but with a thoroughly conservative point of view, to the era covered in U.S.A. Dos Passos’s plays, The Garbage Man(1926), Airways, Inc (1929), and Fortune Heights (1933), were collected in Three Plays (1934).
Dos Passos, John Roderigo (1896-1970)
