The image of the city in the works of William Carlos Williams, Kenneth Fearing, and Claude McKay

The unprecedented growth of the modern American city posed a problem for American artists and intellectuals. William Carlos Williams, Kenneth Fearing, and Claude McKay initially saw New York as a vibrant place that promised excitement and cultural stimulation; however, eventually all three became disenchanted with New York and saw in it a threat to human individuality.; William Carlos Williams lived outside of New York but knew it well. In some early poems he pastoralized the cityscape. In later poems, New York became a place that was completely alien to the speakers of his poems. In In the American Grain, he demonstrated how ideal cities are associated with the feminine while in “The American Background” he showed American cities to be the product of Puritanism which was divorced from local conditions. In Paterson, Williams shifted his focus from a masculine representation of the city to a feminine one when he introduced strong female personae in the poem's later books.; Kenneth Fearing moved to New York and became intimately acquainted with the radical political and literary circles there. He never allied himself with communism, and he developed his own style of modernism based on the people and events he encountered in the city. Although New York was exciting and filled with cultural possibilities, Fearing showed in his poetry the negative aspects of modern urban living. The city's institutions obliterated the individual, and capitalism replaced any real human interaction.; Claude McKay came to New York from Jamaica in order to develop his literary career. Initially he saw the city as a place of enormous potential, but in his early poems he contrasted his idyllic Jamaican childhood with the alienating New York life he saw. He also showed how racial inequities made New York a difficulty place to live. In Home to Harlem, McKay initially depicted Harlem as a vibrant urban community, but at the end of the novel, McKay showed Harlem to be a threat. In Harlem: Negro Metropolis, McKay explored the contradictions of Harlem. He found that the problems of Harlem were the result of economic and social forces and urged a united effort to overcome the inequities he saw.