In the time after World War One a new way of thinking became prominent. This new idea is what we call Modernism. After the war it was realized that many people had suffered absolute horrors, ones that they never could have imagined, or ever forget. The violence and pain witnessed by so many left them psychologically shell-shocked, and filled with disillusionment. These psychological effects would soon alter the world for years to come, and lead many to a loss in faith and questioning of everything they once believed true.
Many of the social normalities these people had before they left for war, were abandoned. People exchanged their proper ways for more relaxed ideals. In this new society people were more able to express themselves, how they wanted to. One of the best shifts that happened in this new era was with women. Before World War One, women were considered submissive to men. They did not have duties outside of daily house work, and children. However after World War One people returned to women who had taken on more manly roles. In The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway uses women to show these challenges of society. Take Brett Ashley, before the war she would have been considered a rebel, and unattractive to most men, but after the war he attributes take on a whole new light. Brett is in control of her surroundings and this control gives her options that many women before had not experienced. This independence can be seen in her promiscuity. When Jake confronts her about this behavior she makes no excuse but rather says “ Oh well. What if I do” (Hemingway 27). This reaction is something new. Post World War, many women began reject the social norms that had been set for them. Unlike the women in e.e. Cummings poem The Cambridge l...
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...ions and fill their time with meaningless activity then to give light to their dreams.
It’s not hard to comprehend how such hideous acts of violence can make a person doubt everything, and maybe that is why so many people shifted to the idea of Modernism. The war had brought on a complete lack of faith, and a full on challenge of social ideals. People probably felt that there was nothing left in the past and it was time for a brand new way of living.
Works Cited
Cummings, e.e. “anyone lived in a pretty how town.” Complete Works. Ed. New York: Harcourt, 1972. 515. Web.
Cummings, e.e. “next to of course god American i.” Complete Works. Ed. New York: Harcourt, 1972. 268. Web.
Cummings, e.e. “(ponder darling these busted statues.” Complete Works. Ed. New York: Harcourt, 1972. 260. Web.
Hemingway, Ernet. The Sun Also Rises. New York: Scribner, 2006. Print.
With this in mind, the era of disillusionment after World War I is completely different from the Progressive period before it. People
In the history of modern western civilization, there have been few incidents of war, famine, and other calamities that severely affected the modern European society. The First World War was one such incident which served as a reflection of modern European society in its industrial age, altering mankind’s perception of war into catastrophic levels of carnage and violence. As a transition to modern warfare, the experiences of the Great War were entirely new and unfamiliar. In this anomalous environment, a range of first hand accounts have emerged, detailing the events and experiences of the authors. For instance, both the works of Ernst Junger and Erich Maria Remarque emphasize the frightening and inhumane nature of war to some degree – more explicit in Jünger’s than in Remarque’s – but the sense of glorification, heroism, and nationalism in Jünger’s The Storm of Steel is absent in Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front. Instead, they are replaced by psychological damage caused by the war – the internalization of loss and pain, coupled with a sense of helplessness and disconnectedness with the past and the future. As such, the accounts of Jünger and Remarque reveal the similar experiences of extreme violence and danger of World War I shared by soldiers but draw from their experiences differing ideologies and perception of war.
Lauter, Paul, vol. 1, 3rd ed. The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Pub: by Houghton Mifflin, 19
Modernism can be defined through the literary works of early independent 20th century writers. Modernism is exp...
Events that occur in the world around us shape our personalities. The experiences that a person lives through, both good and bad, have a direct relationship to that person’s growth as an individual. It could be argued that a person is the sum of their experiences, or more accurately the sum of their memories of those experiences. The memory of an experience does not always reflect the literal truth of what occurred, rather it will reflect how the experience affected the person who remembers it. Two different people who have the same experience can remember it in two very different ways. The differences in their memories will show how the experience affected them differently. An experience as large and life-changing as living through a war will affect a large number of people, who will each remember it and be changed by it in their own way. Literature written about such events will reflect the affected individuals and societies. Some of the effects of World War II on the average German person can be seen through an analysis of the different memories and experiences of the war represented in a selection of post World War II German literature including Gregor von Rezzori’s Memoirs of an Anti-Semite and Heinrich Böll’s And Where Were You, Adam?.
The Weimar years were marked by extraordinary and unrivaled economic, political, and social struggles and crises. Its beginning was marked as being especially difficult in that Germany was wiped out and devastated after four years of the unprecedented warfare of World War I. By 1918 the world had been shocked with over 8.5 million killed on both Allies and Axis sides and many more severely mangled and scarred – body, mind and spirit. This is seen as German Soldier, Ernst Simmel, writes, “when I speak about the war as an event, as the cause of illness, I anticipate something has revealed...namely that it is not only the bloody war which leaves such devastating traces in those who took part in it. Rather, it is also the difficult conflict in which the individual finds himself in his fight against a world transformed by war. Either in the trenches or at home can befall a single organ, or it may encompass the entire person” (Simmel, 1918). For Ernst, and millions of other participants, the war had turned forever changed their world.
Throughout their lives, people must deal with the horrific and violent side of humanity. The side of humanity is shown through the act of war. This is shown in Erich Remarque’s novel, “All Quiet on the Western Front”. War is by far the most horrible thing that the human race has to go through. The participants in the war suffer irreversible damage by the atrocities they witness and the things they go through.
The modernist period was a time of change. After World War II many people found themselves unhappy, lonely, and depressed. With the groundbreaking influences of Karl Marx, Freud, and Nietzsche, many people began to question their own reality. What did it mean to exist? What was life, and what was death? The modernist author reflected this change, and confronted these questions with enthusiasm. Together modernist artists became the representative voice of the people. This voice transcended all forms of art, but was most successful in the written word. Through the experimentation of language and form, the modernist author managed to convey the meaninglessness felt by many, and created a light in the darkness of an uncertain world. Ernest Hemingway's short stories titled "A clean well-lighted Place", and F. Scott Fitzgerald's "Babylon Revisited" are two notable examples of literary art during the modernist period.
Lauter, Paul. The Heath Anthology of American Literature Fifth Edition Volume B Early Nineteenth Century: 1800-1865 2006
In the beginning of the twentieth century, literature changed and focused on breaking away from the typical and predicate patterns of normal literature. Poets at this time took full advantage and stretched the idea of the mind’s conscience on how the world, mind, and language interact and contradict. Many authors, such as Fitzgerald, Steinbeck, and Twain, used the pain and anguish in first hand experiences to create and depict a new type of literature, modernism. In this time era, literature and art became a larger part of society and impacted more American lives than ever before. During the American modernism period of literature, authors, artists, and poets strived to create pieces of literature and art that challenged American traditions and tried to reinvent it, used new ways of communication, such as the telephone and cinema, to demonstrate the new modern social norms, and express the pain and suffering of the First World War.
The novel, The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway is an example of how an entire generation redefined gender roles after being affected by the war. The Lost Generation of the 1920’s underwent a great significance of change that not only affected their behaviors and appearances but also how they perceived gender identity. Lady Brett Ashley and Jake Barnes are two of the many characters in the novel that experience shattered gender roles because of the post war era. The characters in the novel live a lifestyle in which drugs and alcohol are used to shadow emotions and ideals of romanticism. Brett’s lack of emotional connection to her various lovers oppose Jake’s true love for her which reveals role reversal in gender and the redefinition of masculinity and femininity. The man is usually the one that is more emotionally detached but in this case Lady Brett Ashley has a masculine quality where as Jake has a feminine quality. Both men and female characters in the novel do not necessarily fit their gender roles in society due to the post war time period and their constant partying and drinking. By analyzing Brett, Jake, and the affects the war had on gender the reader obtains a more axiomatic understanding of how gender functions in the story by examining gender role reversal and homosexuality.
Modernistic work is a response to regional writers, shift of social mores, and or technology originating in the late 19th century early 20th century. It was also a response to World War I with the uses of allusiveness and deliberate shifts of social norms. Modernist writers looked to international interest outside of what was currently around them. This in turn was their way of not looking for acceptance of their work although they wanted it noticed.
Modernists did not have faith in the external reality put forth by social institutions, such as the government and religion, and they no longer considered these avenues as trustworthy means to discover the meaning of life. For this reason they turned within themselves to discover the answers. Modernist literature is centered on the psychological experience as opposed to the external realities of the world. The experience is moved inwards in an attempt to make modernist works more representative of reality by making the experience more personal. The modernist era of literature is closely associated with the works of T.S. Eliot, James Joyce and Virginia Woolf, among others. These three authors stand out because they have made use of unique literary tactics and devices which emphasize the inward turn of modernist literature.
The Postmodern Era or Post War Era is said to have begun in 1940 (Wang). Postmodernism is defined by Brian McHale as, “A main international current of literature and at after the waning of modernism, both continuous and dis-continuous with modernism” (McHale). Gabriel Garcia Marquez, without any problems, exemplified the postmodern “Literature of Replenishment” (McHale). The characteristic that mainly defined the era is the lack of a good narrative (McHale). Postmodernists also believed that all religions are valid (McHale). This era was full of politics, as World War II had just concluded. Writers who experienced World War II are said to be the people who shaped this era (McHale).
Modernism and New Criticism The ways in which we define the importance of texts is constantly changing. We can look back and see critical theories used, such as Historical Criticism, Reader-Response Criticism and Psychoanalytic Criticism. Each of these theories offers a different way to interpret a text.