MAPACA

Mid-Atlantic Popular &
American Culture Association

Architects espousing form as function enjoy identifying structures featuring shapes based on their intended purpose. Conversely, literature is all shaped the same. Pictures and plots are unique; as are characters and stories, but the packaging of the material is pretty similar – different fonts, different materials but really the same.

“Brimstone fires spring up. Dense clouds roll past. Heavy Gatling guns boom. Pandemonium. Troops deploy,” bellows prose from Joyce in Chapter 15 of Ulysses.

Experiences in cities allow for a fascinating portrayal of culture in action. Whether incorporating Joyce’s Dublin, Dickens’s London, Moscow in Master and Margarita or New York in The Catcher in the Rye, urban culture is a primary character.

Twentieth century industrial designers grappled with ‘form follows function’ as they contemplated how to offer blenders, automobiles and coffee makers to the public. Raymond Loewy advocated ‘MAYA’ (Most Advanced Yet Acceptable) a concept that designs are bounded by functional constraints of math and materials. Literature has similar boundaries. Words, plot and characters are a given, but entertainment, beauty and art either emerges or disappears.

“The midnight sun is darkened. The earth trembles. The dead of Dublin arise and appear to many,” continues Joyce, who gives away the setting.

This paper will explore the importance of place in literature and the characterizations of urban culture. Is location and culture only one small tool among many when disseminating ideas and prose? Or is a story automatically enhanced when a sense of place and culture is described in detail?

Would Joyce’s masterpiece be as engaging without the ghosts of Dublin? What do his observations tell us about urbanity? As the world becomes more dominated by urban pursuits how will literature be affected? These are just a few key questions as we address urban culture in literature.