Historical Criticism In The Museum Of Extraordinary Things

Historical Criticism is relevant in Hoffman’s novel The Museum of Extraordinary Things, through the rough time period of the 1920’s in downtown New York. Hoffman uses magical Realism to tie in the history of Coney Island and all of the disarray that comes with the setting. In 1894 Coney was known as the most notorious amusement resorts by the sea in America. Coney Island was full of freak shows and historical displays that were there to amaze the world. Dreamland was always bigger and definitely stranger but was always there for the people. There was fiery flames, an Air Strip and a Submarine, a ride through the Swiss Alps, and infant incubator for premature babies, an Eskimo village, tribes of Berber Horsemen and Igorotte Indians from the Philippines, and Lilliputia, a
In 1920 the Subway reached out and began to rebuild the park. Crowds started to grow larger but the island wasn't the same. The forces needed to create a new mass culture weren’t necessary to make the island sustainable. The joy that came from creativity and building to create change was fading. The park was a place where the rules of every day weren’t there. Where the citizens of New York and even the world for a period of time could go and be and experience something other than their everyday selves, jobs, and stress. Coney made possible to love and cherish and make something of everything different, odd, new, spectacular and strange. The country was trying to become something new and different, which would've came from the unimaginable that was in Coney Island. Coney helped process the change into the realities of the time. The place has always pushed on remembering the past, and dreaming about the future. Coney will always speak to the heart of New Yorkers. That is why there is so much talk about rebuilding this extraordinary amusement park, putting in a new sports complex, or bringing back steeplechase. A steeplechase is a horse race run on a racecourse having ditches and hedges as