PARALLEL UNIVERSE

Posted: January 10th, 2014

Some may argue that, during the first decades of the twentieth century, American Catholicism grew in self-assurance and acquired a sense of chosen-ness previously reserved in America for those with better Puritan credentials. They escaped the disillusionment felt by many Americans of the time, and instead were smugly self-assured, living proudly in their separate universe, unaffected by the outside world. If this resulted in isolation from the rest of America, this was a source of pride for Catholics, not distress. Based on your reading of Studs Lonigan, would you agree or disagree with this thesis? Can you see a smug communal self-assurance in the world Studs lives in, or do the Catholics in Studs Lonigan share some of the disillusionment and frustrations of the modern world? Offer at least four specific examples from the novel to support your argument.