The Synthetic Sublime

1 Pages 286 Words

Ozick’s essay “The Synthetic Sublime” talks about New York’s disappearances and reappearances every 75-100 years as a new city with new immigrants, new pursuits, and new shapes, faithfully inconstant by the ambition that builds the city. “A farmer arriving from Italy to set up a small grocery store in a slum, or a young girl arriving from a small town in Mississippi to escape the indignity of being observed by her neighbors, or a boy arriving from the Corn Belt with a manuscript in his suitcase and a pain in his heart,” are some of the ambitious people that make up New York. Some others in Ozick’s essay such as Willa Gather begin in Red Cloud, Nebraska, ended on Bank Street and Jackson Pollock, born in Cody, Wyoming, landed in New York. Why? New York-- whatever the season is—is ambition. The author states, “That here, right here, is importance, achievement, delight in the work of the world; that here, right here, is the hope of connection, and life in its fulfillment.”
New York ambition has changed its face. Fifty years ago, young people did not have the opportunities like that of today’s life style. Postal clerks and bank tellers were considered to be “family men,” while the young ones were required to wait patiently for their turn. Power and position were the sovereign right of the middle age, and a twenty-three-year-old would have to wait and wait for his/her opportunity to come. It was told in Ozick’s essay that opportunity and recognition for the young were light-years away. Although, a few writers broke out early: Mary McCarthy at twenty-two, Norman Mailer at twenty-five, and Philip Roth; they are all considered to be prodigies and are exceptions....