Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathanael West- An Essay (English Edition)

This is the sixth essay from the book The Modern American Novel Book of Essays by Forest Balderson. Both a summary and a critical analysis of the novel, this essay is in MLA style format. Miss Lonelyhearts, by Nathanael West, is a dark and satirical novel that revolves around the life of a male advice columnist who struggles internally with his responsibility to the readers of his column. The novel’s text is loaded with biblical references. Referred to only as Miss Lonelyhearts, the protagonist slowly maddens in his attempts to publish answers to his weak and suffering subscribers. In the first 40 years of the 20th century, the American novel attained a maturity and force recognized by the world, symbolized by four Nobel prize-winners: Lewis, Buck, Hemingway, and Faulkner. It began with Dreiser's Sister Carrie, in 1900. Modern literature reflects America's growth in the number of cities as well as the progressive alienation from society, effects of war, growth of materialism, isolation of small towns, and the booms and depressions of the United States.