Test 2 Essay Question on Tom Wolfe's "The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby"

HST 344

Dr. Heitmann

Test 2 Essay, in-class, November 12, 2019 (50 pts.)

Critics have said that Tom Wolfe’s early 1960s essays were reflective of a “New American Journalism.” In that style, reporting was written like fiction, and his work   was nothing less than experimental techniques in prose bursting with observation and thoughts. The focus centered on status, culture, form and style.

You are to read three chapters from Tom Wolfe’s The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby: Chapter 2 (“Clean Fun at Riverhead”); Chapter 6 (“The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby”); and Chapter 8 (“The Last American Hero”). These segments feature demolition derby promoter Lawrence Mendelsohn, car customizers George Barris and Ed Roth, and NASCAR driver Junior Johnson. Together they provide a glimpse of the early 1960s American car culture carnival and a changing America. Discuss Wolfe’s description of that carnival, drawing on specific material from the three chapters and the main characters.