Angels on Toast (Masterplots II: Women’s Literature Series)
At a glance:
- Author: Dawn Powell
- First Published: 1940
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Satire
- Time of Work: 1938
- Setting: New York City, Chicago, Miami, Washington, D.C., and rural Connecticut
- Principal Characters: Lou Donovan, Jay Oliver, Ebie Vane, Mary Harrod Donovan, Trina Kameray, Flo Oliver, Francie
- Genres: Long fiction, Satire
- Subjects: New York, North America or North Americans, Northeast, U.S., United States or Americans, Traveling or travelers, New York City, Middle classes, Marriage, 1930’s, Chicago, Jealousy, envy, or resentment, Washington, D.C., Adultery, Ethics, Business or business people
- Locales: New York, NY, Connecticut, Chicago, IL, Washington, D.C., Miami, FL
Form and Content
Angels on Toast satirizes the ego, vulgarity, superficial “go-getterism,” and alcoholic self-indulgence of a type of American businessman common in the 1930’s. At the center of Dawn Powell’s comedy of bad manners are the attitudes of representative males Lou Donovan and Jay Oliver toward their women. Wives are to stay home and keep up a dignified front while their husbands carouse with showgirls or sexually liberated career women. When they marry the type of women with whom they like to indulge themselves, the marriages fail, as they do when a...
[The entire page is 2236 words long]
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