Final answer:
The Lost Generation authors, including H. L. Mencken and Sinclair Lewis, critiqued the middle-class values of the 1920s in their writings, with Lewis winning the Nobel Prize for his depictions of American life in his novels.
Step-by-step explanation:
Critics of American Middle-Class Values
During the 1920s, a group of American authors known as the Lost Generation produced literature that represented their highly critical views of society. Among these authors, H. L. Mencken and Sinclair Lewis stood out for their incisive critiques of the prevailing middle-class values.
Sinclair Lewis, in his novels Main Street and Babbitt, depicted American middle-class life as stifling and shallow, which earned him the Nobel Prize in literature. His satirical works examined the conformity and mindless pleasure-seeking of the time.
Meanwhile, Edith Wharton and F. Scott Fitzgerald, with works like The Age of Innocence and The Great Gatsby, explored the negative aspects of society such as the superficiality of the social elite and the disillusionment of the post-World War I generation.
These writers, along with others like Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos, sought to escape from and critique the society that they felt alienated from, with many living as expatriates in cities like Paris, Rome, or Berlin. Their collective disillusionment and despair were a response to the effects of prohibition, World War I, growing fundamentalism, and the Red Scare. Their works provided significant social critique during a time when others felt the era's changes would lead to enhancements and opportunities.