John Dos Passos, The Grand Design

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The Grand Design

is a fitting conclusion to John Dos Passos’s trilogy of disillusionment,

District of Columbia,

at once more innovative and more despairing than the other two components. During the next decade Dos Passos would concentrate on historical and autobiographical writing; his two novels from that time (

Chosen Country

, 1951 and

Most Likely to Succee

d, 1954) would be a substantial decline artistically.

The Grand Design

is less balanced in tone than the

U.S.A.

trilogy because Dos Passos has fallen victim to a tendency that is nearly inevitable for political satirists. He has begun to see politics as uniformly good and evil; his characters cease to be multi-dimensional, or real people who happen to practice politics. Now they tend to be one-dimensional political figures; moreover,…

2902 words

Citation: Dougherty, David C.. "The Grand Design". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 27 November 2015 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=708, accessed 13 October 2024.]

708 The Grand Design 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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