A Plagued Modern Nation
The industrial revolution was a period of great wealth for America. It brought many jobs and raised the employment rate exponentially, but not everyone thought it was a beneficial change for our future. H.L. Mencken wrote the passage The Libido for the Ugly, which heavily criticized how America’s landscape changed. The author of this critical piece used imagery and hyperboles to accentuate his opinion on the sheer ugliness of Pittsburgh and Industrial America as a whole.
Throughout the passage, the imagery of hell and decay appeared constantly. Mencken selected this type of imagery to compare Pittsburgh’s “abominable houses” to “gravestones in some gigantic and decaying cemetery” (3) to emphasize his grim perspective of the effects of modernization had on cities. Mencken preferred Gothic and Georgian styles of architecture of an older America which suddenly gave way to cities smothered by steel factories, railroad stations, refineries and warehouses. Quaint neighborhoods disappeared and were replaced with rugged housing, churches and government buildings. The continuous decay of America’s culture can be seen particularly, when the old …show more content…
This literary device has a strong effect on the passage that helped assert his claims on Industrial America. Mencken described the “appalling desolation” (1) of Westmoreland county, as he surveyed the bleak scenery. The wretchedly congested areas he traveled through are dramatized by the use of the hyperbole. The author described the industrial people with “the lust to make the world intolerable” (9) because they polluted America with ugly hovels and disgraced the ground by erecting factories. They were a scourge upon the world that Mencken wanted to eradicate. He yearned for the charm of the old European architecture that was slowly vanishing and comforted his eyes through his
The industrial revolution was a period of great wealth for America. It brought many jobs and raised the employment rate exponentially, but not everyone thought it was a beneficial change for our future. H.L. Mencken wrote the passage The Libido for the Ugly, which heavily criticized how America’s landscape changed. The author of this critical piece used imagery and hyperboles to accentuate his opinion on the sheer ugliness of Pittsburgh and Industrial America as a whole.
Throughout the passage, the imagery of hell and decay appeared constantly. Mencken selected this type of imagery to compare Pittsburgh’s “abominable houses” to “gravestones in some gigantic and decaying cemetery” (3) to emphasize his grim perspective of the effects of modernization had on cities. Mencken preferred Gothic and Georgian styles of architecture of an older America which suddenly gave way to cities smothered by steel factories, railroad stations, refineries and warehouses. Quaint neighborhoods disappeared and were replaced with rugged housing, churches and government buildings. The continuous decay of America’s culture can be seen particularly, when the old …show more content…
This literary device has a strong effect on the passage that helped assert his claims on Industrial America. Mencken described the “appalling desolation” (1) of Westmoreland county, as he surveyed the bleak scenery. The wretchedly congested areas he traveled through are dramatized by the use of the hyperbole. The author described the industrial people with “the lust to make the world intolerable” (9) because they polluted America with ugly hovels and disgraced the ground by erecting factories. They were a scourge upon the world that Mencken wanted to eradicate. He yearned for the charm of the old European architecture that was slowly vanishing and comforted his eyes through his