This thesis explores the question of adaptation in relation to Paul Thomas Anderson's film There Will Be Blood and Upton Sinclair's novel Oil!. I argue, the reason adaptation studies has not necessarily moved beyond its obsession with fidelity is because theorists have neglected to understand a larger, more general, film going audience does not participate in perpetuating the academic theories that would do so. I then examine There Will Be Blood and its self-awareness of its relation to literature and its use of Upton Sinclair's Oil!. Finally, this line of inquiry leads me to conclude that There Will Be Blood disavows a notion of authority that would always make the adapted book better than the film.

This thesis explores the question of adaptation in relation to Paul Thomas Anderson's film There Will Be Blood and Upton Sinclair's novel Oil!. I argue, the reason adaptation studies has not necessarily moved beyond its obsession with fidelity is because theorists have neglected to understand a larger, more general, film going audience does not participate in perpetuating the academic theories that would do so. I then examine There Will Be Blood and its self-awareness of its relation to literature and its use of Upton Sinclair's Oil!. Finally, this line of inquiry leads me to conclude that There Will Be Blood disavows a notion of authority that would always make the adapted book better than the film.

This thesis attempts to ascertain whether Upton Sinclair's Democratic nomination for governor of California in 1934 caused the resurgence of the Democratic Party in California, or whether his nomination was a product of that party's resurgence between 1928 and 1942. Given Sinclair's decision on the unsuitability of the Socialist Party, were his judgments that: (1) the Democratic Party was in resurgence and, (2) it was moving to the left, sound ones? To make these determinations the thesis investigates why Sinclair rushed to capture the Democratic nomination, exploring his methods and techniques and those used to defeat him. It also examines the reactions of the Democratic Party leaders of the right and left wings toward the Sinclair candidacy, and analyzes the primary and general.election returns -- citing differences and similarities between Northern and Southern California -- which predicate that Sinclair's decision was: (I) based on faulty judgement, and (2) based on an inaccurate appraisal of the position of the Democratic Party.

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ABSTRACT This study focuses on twenty-one particular texts published in 1925 as contemporaries of The Great Gatsby. The manuscript is divided into four categories—The Impressionists, The Experimentalists, The Realists, and The Independents. Among The Impressionists are F. Scott Fitzgerald himself, Willa Cather (The Professor’s House), Sherwood Anderson (Dark Laughter), William Carlos Williams (In the American Grain), Elinor Wylie (The Venetian Glass Nephew), John Dos Passos (Manhattan Transfer), and William Faulkner (New Orleans Sketches). The Experimentalists are Gertrude Stein (The Making of Americans), E. E. Cummings (& aka “Poems 48-96”), Ezra Pound (A Draft of XVI Cantos), T. S. Eliot (“The Hollow Men”), Laura Riding (“Summary for Alastor”), and John Erskine (The Private Life of Helen of Troy). The Realists are Theodore Dreiser (An American Tragedy), Edith Wharton (The Mother’s Recompense), Upton Sinclair (Mammonart), Ellen Glasgow (Barren Ground), Sinclair Lewis (Arrowsmith), James Boyd (Drums), and Ernest Hemingway (In Our Time). The Independents are Archibald MacLeish (The Pot of Earth) and Robert Penn Warren (“To a Face in a Crowd”). Although these twenty-two texts may in some cases represent literary fragmentations, each in its own way also represents a coherent response to the spirit of the times that is in one way or another cognate to The Great Gatsby. The fact that all these works appeared the same year is special because the authors, if not already famous, would become famous, and their works were or would come to represent classic American literature around the world. The twenty-two authors either knew each other personally or knew each other’s works. Naturally, they were also influenced by writings of international authors and philosophers. The greatest common elements among the poets and fiction writers are their uninhibited interest in sex, an absorbing cynicism about life, and the frequent portrayal of disintegration of the family, a trope for what had happened to the countries and to the “family of nations” that experienced the Great War. In 1925, it would seem, Fitzgerald and many of his writing peers—some even considered his betters—channeled a major spirit of the times, and Fitzgerald did it more successfully than almost anyone.

Chicago occupies a place in the American imagination as a city of industry and opportunity for those who are willing to hustle. Writers have in no small part contributed to the creation of this mythology; this canon includes Frank Norris, Theodore Dreiser, Upton Sinclair, Carl Sandburg, and Richard Wright. What is it about these authors that make them the classics of Chicago literature? The “essential” books of Chicago enshrine a period during which the city still held a prominent position in the national economy and culture, and embodied for Americans something of their own identity—the value of individualism, and the Protestant work ethic. Notably absent are the narratives from immigrants, particularly those of color: for a city that was a primary destination for the Great Migration of African Americans from the South and the concurrent immigration of Mexicans in the early part of the 20th century, it is remarkable that these stories have not gained significant attention, with the exception of Richard Wright’s. This dissertation interrogates the discourse of ambition and labor in the Chicago literary tradition from the perspective of three Mexican American authors from Chicago—Carlos Cortez, Ana Castillo, and Sandra Cisneros. These authors, faced with late 20th century deindustrialization and the enduring legacy of segregation, engage with the canonical narratives of Chicago by addressing the intersections of race and citizenship as they affect urban space and labor opportunities. Rather than simply offering a critique, however, the Mexican American authors engage in a re-visioning of the city that incorporates the complexities of a fluid, transnational experience, and in doing so suggest the future of urban life in a post-industrial America. / text