Suburbianation

Reading Suburban Landscape in Twentieth Century American Fiction and Film

Browse Return to Previous Page       Related Subjects All Subjects American Studies Cultural Studies

by Robert Beuka

Palgrave

Due/Published January 2004, 288 pages, paper

ISBN 1403963401

The United States is primarily a suburban nation, with far more Americans living in the suburbs than in either urban or rural areas. Why were suburbs created to begin with? How do we define them? Are they really the promised land of the American middle class? The concept of space and how we create it is an idea that is receiving a great deal of attention, and SuburbiaNation looks carefully at the suburban landscape through the lens of fiction and of film. Robert Beuka weaves together such classics as It's a Wonderful Life, The Stepford Wives, Rabbit, Run, The Great Gatsby, The Graduate and House Party to discuss the utopian model of the suburb and its significance in American culture.

Contents

Utopia, Dystopia, Heterotopia: The Suburban Landscape in Twentieth Century American Culture and Thought
"The hour of a profound human change": Transitional Landscapes and the Sense of Place in Two Proto-Suburban Narratives
Finding the Worm in the Apple: John Cheever, Class Distinction, and the Postwar Suburban Landscape
Honey, I'm Home (?): Rabbit, Benjamin, and the Imperiled Suburban Male
Approaching Stepford: Gender, Suburbia, and the Politics of Domesticity
Color Adjustment: African American Representations of Suburban Life and Landscape
Conclusion