The Day Of The Locust Essay

The Day of the Locust is a novel written by Nathanael West, it was first published in 1950 by New Directions Co. The Day of the Locust is a novel explaining, in great detail the way of life in hollywood in the 1930’s. Tod Hackett has been in Hollywood for three months, since he was recruited and hired by telegram from the Yale School of Fine Arts. He observes the people of Hollywood and divides them into two classes; the first class is made up of the people who seem to be coming from or going to somewhere, the second class consists of those people who are going nowhere, Tod identifies this class of people as those who "had come to California to die." The theme of this novel is difficult to interpret because it’s too broad for a simple explanation; West uses many methods to express the theme, however, they are not always clear. Nevertheless the main idea appears to be the way of life in Hollywood and the different reasons why each character decided to move to California. The Day of the Locust is challenging to comprehend and disturbing to read; however, West does an outstanding job at using symbolism, humor and shifts of narrations to allow the story to take definition, with this in mind the novel is still very disturbing and aimless. The main characters of this …show more content…
The hopeless dreams that the population had and never accomplished because of favoritism. West accomplish this because he had his own personal experience in Hollywood; he went to Hollywood in 1933 as a screenwriter, he lived in a rundown apartment house, just like the one described in The Day of the locust. West observed the decor, architecture and the people just like Tod did, perhaps West tells his experience through Tod. West also achieves the purpose by describing the life that the characters lived for example the lives of: Faye, Homer, Miguel, Earl, Harry; they all lived different but impacting