modernism

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Modernism is manifested in many various ways in the works by Southern Renaissance writers. All of the writers studied for this time period used multiple themes of modernism. In As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner portrays modernism through his characters by having each character narrate their different parts of the story. This type of narration, though fragmented, allows various viewpoints to be heard, and it allows a look into the mind or psychology of each character. In Flannery O’Connor’s, Good Country People, there is the use of bizarre and outlandish actions and descriptions of characters in order to show the degeneration of society. Flannery’s use of the grotesque in order to show the absurdity of situations is a modern characteristic. In A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams displayed many uses of modernism, from Blanche’s view point of Stanley being primitive and unsophisticated, to Stella’s ability to stay neutral and understand and empathize with multiple points of view. Stella was able to walk the fine line between Stanley and Blanche’s extreme views on each other; their views of each other represented the extremes of society and class.
In As I Lay Dying, Faulkner uses each character in the story as a narrator for the story. As a reader you are not given specific details of who the narrator is referring to at any given time because you are seeing the story through the eyes of that person. For instance when Varadam is referring to Dewey Dell he only refers to her as she, the reader is forced to become part of the story as well and figure out who is being spoken about. With Faulkner exploring multiple narrators there is not a clear sense of who is the protagonist and we are not sure whose story to believe be...

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...s him because she does not respect him and almost succeeds in turning his wife against him. Though Stella comes from an upper middle class family just as Blanch, she does not have the same judgments or pretenses that Blanch displays. Throughout the story Stella plays the role of the mediator between Stanley and Blanche. The battle between Blanche and Stanley oftentimes is a fight for Stella’s approval and affection. It can also be seen as a fight between modernism and traditionalism.
Modernism is portrayed in many different ways and focused a lot on the psychology of its characters. The characters in these stories appear to be stuck in their societal issues unable to escape. We see Addie, who even in death wanted nothing more than to escape the miserable existence of her family. And in Stella’s case, sometimes the characters were not looking for an escape.

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