Question 1. “The Lost Generation".
The Lost Generation is a group of writers who came in during World War I to express their disappointment with the World War I era. The Lost Generation comprised of writers like Ernest Hemingway, Edith Wharton, Scott Fitzgerald, Sinclair Lewis and John Dos Passos. The Lost Generation felt that they were being alienated from the society; therefore, they decided to escape and criticize the alienation. Some of the members of the Lost Generation literally escaped. The Lost Generation writers lived an immigrant life in Paris and others went to Berlin or Rome.
The Lost Generation used their writing talent to express their hopelessness by criticizing the middle-class people. Scott Fitzgerald through his novel, “This side of Paradise,” describes the generation of the youth in the 1920s. Fitzgerald served as a second lieutenant in the World War I. Ernest Hemingway was working as an ambulance driver during World War I. Hemingway’s experience of war is what drove him into writing novels like “The Sun Also Rises” among other novels (U.S. History). Sinclair Lewis was influenced by the developments of the previous generation. In his writing, Lewis mocked the American middle-class people as mindless people.
During World War I, Edith Wharton worked in Paris where she helped women to establish businesses. Wharton came from a wealthy family in New York. According to U.S. History, the Lost Generation writers felt lost because they were disappointed to discover that the post-war life was not good, as they had envisaged. The Lost Generation writers thought life in America would be good after World War I, but they came to realize that the United States they knew was gone completely.
Question 2. Alger Hiss case.
Alger Hiss was an official of the American government working in the State Department. According to U.S. History, Hiss was suspected to be a Soviet agent. The case against Hiss started in 1948. The parties involved in the Alger Hiss case were Whittaker Chambers, the House of Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and Hiss. Chambers was an editor with “Time” magazine and an ex-communist who admitted publicly that he used to be a communist. HUAC is the legal body that oversaw the Hiss case. The other people involved in Alger Hiss case were Dean Acheson, the Secretary of State, and President Truman, who were defending Hiss.
In the Alger Hiss case, Hiss was accused of being a Soviet spy before and during World War II ("Alger Hiss Convicted Of Perjury").
Chambers testified before HUAC that Hiss, during his tenure in the Department of State in the 1930s, exposed top-secret reports to him. Hiss was summoned by HUAC where he denied the charges and claimed that he did not know Chambers. Chambers produced copies of the documents that Hiss gave him in the 1930s. Dean Acheson defended Hiss by saying that the opponents of President Truman wanted to sacrifice Hiss and that Hiss was innocent. President Truman declared that HUAC was using misleading clues to speak ill of Hiss. There were reports that President Truman and Acheson were also communists.
The Alger Hiss case ended with a trial where Hiss was charged with two counts. Hiss was charged for denying that he had not been involved with Chambers before and for lying about passing state government documents to Chambers. Hiss was not tried for treason because of some limitations in the evidence produced in his case. After the final verdict, Hiss was sentenced to jail for about four years. Notably, Hiss was treated fairly by HUAC the legal system. The legal system made the trial decision after reviewing the compelling written evidence produced by Chambers. Hiss was not innocent because he gave out government documents.
Works Cited
"Alger Hiss Convicted Of Perjury". HISTORY.com. N.p., 2009. Web. 18 Mar. 2016.
U.S. History. 1st ed. Houston, Texas: OpenStax College, 2014. Web. 18 Mar. 2016.
