Decadence (redirected from Social regress)

Decadence

Buddenbrooks

portrays the downfall of a materialistic society. [Ger. Lit.: Buddenbrooks]

cherry orchard

focal point of the declining Ranevsky estate. [Russ. Drama: Chekhov The Cherry Orchard in Magill II, 144]

Diver, Dick

dissatisfied psychiatrist goes downhill on alcohol. [Am. Lit.: Tender is the Night]

Gray, Dorian

beautiful youth whose hedonism leads to vice and depravity. [Br. Lit.: Oscar Wilde The Picture of Dorian Gray]

Great Gatsby, The

1925 novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald symbolizes corruption and decadence. [Am. Lit.: The Great Gatsby]

House of Usher

eerie, decayed mansion collapses as master dies. [Am. Lit.: “Fall of the House of Usher” in Tales of Terror]

Lonigan, Studs

Chicago Irishman whose life is one of physical and moral deterioration (1935). [Am. Lit.: Studs Lonigan: A Trilogy, Magill III, 1028–1030]

Manhattan Transfer

novel portraying the teeming greed of the city’s inhabitants. [Am. Lit.: Manhattan Transfer]

Nana

indictment of social decay during Napoleon III’s reign (1860s). [Fr. Lit.: Nana, Magill I, 638–640]

Remembrance of Things Past

records the decay of a society. [Fr. Lit.: Haydn & Fuller, 630]

Satyricon

novel by Petronius depicting social excesses in imperial Rome. [Rom. Lit.: Magill II, 938]

Sun Also Rises, The

moral collapse of expatriots. [Am. Lit.: The Sun Also Rises]

Sound and the Fury, The

Faulkner novel about an old Southern family gone to seed: victims of lust, incest, suicide, and idiocy. [Am. Lit.: Magill I, 917]

Warren, The

Haredale’s house, “mouldering to ruin.” [Br. Lit.: Barnaby Rudge]

Yoknapatawpha County

northern Mississippi; decadent setting for Faulkner’s novels. [Am. Lit.: Hart, 955]