As I read The Day of the Locust I continually got the feeling of despair. The book elaborates on the many different structures which are fake and poorly built just to be used as props for movies. Tod often looks at these structures with contempt because of their lack of sturdiness, but accepts it because he knows they are all created not with conventional materials such as steel and concrete, but with "plaster, lath and paper" because "plaster and paper know no law, not even that of gravity (61)."
Each of the characters shows despair also. Tod wants Faye so baldy that he has contemplated raping her more than once. Faye, who seems to have nothing going for her except her beauty, is convinced that if given a chance, she WILL become a movie star. Poor Homer, who came to Hollywood to get rest, is also madly but uselessly in love with Faye. I think Tod does a very good job of describing all the people who come to Hollywood seeking "instant fame and success" with his saying about the "people who came to California to die."
The last chapter of the book does an excellent job of summing up the feeling of despair that I feel when I hear about the lives of the main characters living in Hollywood. Tod talks about all the people in the world who work and save their entire lives for something and decide to come to California in order to find what they have been looking for. Page 178 reads "They have been cheated and betrayed. They have slaved and saved for nothing."
Same here...it may have been the most depressing and sick-minded novel I've ever read but then again I don't read much. I feel that the quote on page 178 captured the essence of what West was trying to get across to his readers. That the "American Dream" is unattainable and that in itself is a good point he was making. Its the way that he went about it that I didn't enjoy. There were tons of other ways he could have made that point that would have made the reading more enjoyable and less sexually-oriented.
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