`` Ask The Dust, By John Fante Essay examples

John Fante’s masterpiece, Ask the Dust, exquisitely describes the city of Los Angeles during the early 1900s. Very seemingly, there is a strange parallel between modern day Florida and early 1900s Los Angeles. There are many ways that the two places are similar, such as the people who inhabit them, the climate, and how they are characterized and viewed as places of paradise. Los Angeles seems to be thought of as a sunny paradise, where dreams could come true and where the old could die peacefully, feeling like they had to accomplished everything in life. It was a fantasy and so many people fell for that fantasy. There were definitely two central group of people living in Los Angeles during this time that contrasted greatly and therefore their level of happiness differed drastically. They were the opposite extreme from each other. There were in Fante’s words the one, “With their bright polo shirts and sunglasses, they were in paradise, they belonged" (Fante, 45). These are probably the people, from that time, that would fit into that category of modern day men in Los Angeles. These men had money and did not have a care in the world. On the other side of the spectrum were many who left their homes and came to Los Angeles looking for something great and only found themselves with no money. Fante describes them, "But down on Main Street, down on Towne and San Pedro, and for a mile on lower Fifth Street were the tens of thousands of others; they couldn 't afford sunglasses…