Explanation of selective topics of Modernism
Make a brief discussion on the following topics:
# Modernism
# The features of Modernism
# The Lost Generation
# Modernism in American literature and the Modernist
writers
# The Roaring 1920s and its features
# The American Dream and the decline of the American
Dream
Answer to the Quest. No: 01
There goes a famous saying, “Walking in the newness is life.” If we dig
the history of English, we will see that diverse new and newer phases have
embellished the English history. The phases can also be called movements and
these movements have taught people how to lift up their eyes beyond established
norms, question them, raise voices against aristocracy, protest for one’s own
rights, and diminish the biasness of class and gender from the society. Renaissance, Glorious Revolution, Romanticism
etc. Modernism is not an exception.
Modernism is a philosophical and artistic movement that sought a
“conscious break” from the convention and urged the people especially the
American and European youngsters to implement their thoughts and ideas in a new
way. This movement created a sharp divergence between the longstanding traditional
beliefs and rigid regulations of the Roman Catholic Church and the unrestrained
mode of life. It lasted from the late 19th century to the early 20th
century.
Religion, kings, and the rules and orders of the Parliament were given
the utmost priority throughout the history of Great Britain and America. People
were always obliged to bow down their head before the church authority and
kings. They hoped that the administrative figures would definitely do something
to put an end to their plight. In
William Blake’s poem “The Chimney Sweeper” (Songs of Experience), it is clearly
observable that the parents of a little boy have abandoned him amidst the
freezing cold and rush to the church to worship the authority. Ironically, the
authority has shown absolute negligence to the agony of the common people.
Moreover, the Puritan people left England and settled in the New England just
for practicing their religion freely. Sermons like “Sinners in the Hands of an
Angry God” were delivered to make the Puritans especially the materialistic
ones realize that how grim destiny they can meet if they dare to defy God. Two
well-known political parties- the Whig and the Tory were founded in the
Restoration period of England to provide people with peace and security against
the political unrest of that time. In fact, every nation had its own organized ruling
system. In spite of doing everything, the whole world witnessed the outrageous
eruption of the First World War in 1914 that left a huge impact on America and
Great Britain.
The formidable consequences of the WW1 are given below:
1) Unemployment
2) Famine
3) Severe
damage in the economic infrastructure of the whole world
4) Corruption
5) Ethical
aberration
The Great Depression was occurred in 1929 in Great Britain. Britain economy was immediately devastated and the rate of unemployment reached to 2.5 million. America also faced hard economic times and problems related to labor, race, and reintegration of veterans. The administration of Woodrow Wilson failed to plan the process of demobilization and this led to a chaotic situation. The military discharged four millions soldiers with scanty money and few benefits. The prices of farming lands extensively increased and left the farmers bankrupt or deeply in debt. When immigration of the labors was cut off, the American people experienced severe labor shortage. It also led to the unemployment of the workers. Furthermore, postwar patriotism and fear of Communism after Russian Revolution produced the Red Scare in America in 1919-1920.
The Lost Generation:
The Lost Generation refers to a group of intellectuals who were embittered by America’s involvement in the global war, the unorganized situation of America after the war, and the extravagance, hollowness, and narrow-mindedness of the American society. Majority of writers and artists including Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, John Steinbeck left America and to Paris where they formed an expatriate colony.
Characteristics of Modernism:
There are several characteristics of Modernism. These are:
1) Individualism
2) Nihilism
3) Fragmentation
4) Primitivism
5) Narcissism
6) Perversity
7) Imagism
8) Experimentation
and
9) Symbolism
A brief discussion on
the characteristics is given below:
1) Individualism:
Individualism has been
considered as a prominent theme since the Renaissance era. The Greek
philosophers especially Socrates has emphasized individualism and
self-discovery again and again. The famous sayings of Socrates like “Know
thyself” and “An unexamined life is not worth living” remind us again and again
about the significance of being individual. The characters- Hester Prynne in
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter,
Lisbeth Salander in The Girl with
Dragon Tattoo , John Proctor in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible are the strong epitomes of individualism. All of them
have fought with the society to establish their rights, diminish
discrimination, and do some good for the society. This is also one of the most
important characteristics of Modernism. The Modernist literature also gives
more priority to the individuals than the society. But the individuals of the
20th century are known as “rugged individuals” as their intention
was not to achieve any constructive goal. Rather, their only intention was to
strive for a goal to be rich and succeed alone in the darkness.
2) Nihilism:
The term ‘Nihilism’ refers to
nothingness. It is the belief that everything is baseless and strongly condemns
the existence of human beings. A true nihilist believes in nothing, does not
have any loyalty, and possess an impulse to destroy. When the global war
destroyed uncountable lives, people became utterly dumbfounded. They lost everything
and the people who were penniless found no meaning of life at that time.
Therefore, they tended to become nihilist. According to Friedrich Nietzsche,
the idea of nihilism cannot be avoided and we must go through it.
3) Fragmentation:
The whole world witnessed the
horror and destruction of the First World War. As a result, organization and
wholeness were hardly found in the postwar society. The mental fragmentation of
the people can be clearly seen in the literature. Plots, characters, themes,
images all these things are represented as “broken” by the literary figures of
the 20th century. For instance, T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Waste Land”
depicts a modern wasteland of crumbled cities. The poem, itself, is fragmented
consisting of broken stanzas and sentences that reflect cultural debris and
detritus through which the speaker wades. The theme fragmentation reinforces
the fragmentation of reality and contradicts Hegelian notions of totality.
Primitivism:
According to Christianity, Satan is
solely responsible for implanting all the deadly desires in human beings. In
Sigmund Freud’s theory, the psychic apparatus id instigates us to implement our
worldly and carnal desires. Though human beings are blessed with the light of
knowledge and reason and have been trying to civilize themselves with the help
of technology and invention, they fall prey to their obnoxious impulses that
lead to chaotic situations. In the 20th
century, people were void of ethical sense as they lost faith in religion. So,
they were indulged by their aggressive lifestyle and could reach to any extent
to achieve their persuasion.
5) Narcissism:
In this age of moral decadence and
decay, the narcissist attitude of people was conspicuous. The features of
secondary narcissism were dominant in them. People especially the young ones
did not feel any hesitation to stab others from the back just to gratify their
own selves. If we take the novel The
Great Gatsby of F. Scott Fitzgerald as an example, we will see that most of
the main characters such as Gatsby, Tom, Daisy, Jordan, Meyer Wolfsheim etc.
are extremely narcissist.
6) Perversity:
Perversity refers to the decline in
morality of the modern people. The aforementioned characteristics are highly
responsible for the mental perversity of people of that time.
7) Imagism:
Imagism refers to the artistic movement of
using precise images in literary works. It is coined by Ezra Pound and totally
contrasts with the ornamental narrative style of the Romanic Age. The
Romanticists have eulogized the nature in an elaborate way. On the other hand,
the precise images of the terrifying First World War have been depicted in the
modern writings. The description of the valley of ashes in the Great Gatsby is a perfect example of this. There it is said, “a
fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque
gardens, where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and
finally with a transcendent effort of ash-gray man who move dimly and already
crumbled through the powdery air.”
8) Experimentalism:
In this era, the writers did not
follow the traditional writing styles. Rather, they experimented with many new
and newer writing techniques. Stream of Consciousness is one of the innovated
literary techniques of that time. It refers to the flow of feelings and
expressions of a character through monologues. The term was first used by the
psychologist William James in the Principles
of Psychology. As the psychological novels developed in the 20th
century, the writers attempted to capture the total flow of the characters’
consciousness, rather than to limit them into rational thoughts.
9) Symbolism:
A varied range of suggestive symbols such as
water, bird, bridge, color etc. has been
used in the works of the 20th century to portray the then condition
of people’s mind.
Modernist writers in America and Modernism in their works:
The well-known writers in the age of Modernism are- Ernest Hemingway, F.
Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce, T.S Eliot, Robert Frost, Robert Lowell etc. The
whole era is exquisitely reflected in their works.
In the novel Farewell
to Arms, Hemingway has shown the devastation of the global war, suddenness
of death, love vs. loss, self vs. duty, and religion. The only lasting value of
Hemingway is nihilism that is the blankness of life. He cannot see any hope in living
in the modern world. Both life and death are terrifying for him.
J.D. Salinger’s The
Catcher in the Rye tells us the story of ethical decline of that time
through the story of adolescent Holden Caulfield. Caulfield is desperately
trying to protect his innocence and goodness in the world where even his old
English teachers make homosexual advances to him and the prostitute with whom
he has refused to sleep involves him in a fighting for more money. The novel
salutes Caulfield’s struggle for something better in such a hypocritical world.
Robert Lowell’s works deal with the typical themes
of that time. Rebellion, images of decay and corruption, and search for
spiritual truth are prominent in his works which are totally contrast to the
works of Robert Frost.
The philosophical figures who influenced Modernism are given below:
1) Sigmund
Freud
2) Karl
Marx
3) Friedrich
Nietzsche
4) Charles
Darwin
Sigmund Freud, the
Austrian psychiatrist and neurologist, is the founder of psychoanalysis and
famous for his book Interpretation of
Dreams. He has always dived into the depth of human psychology and
interpreted the complexity of human mind through the three psychic apparatus-
the id, the ego, and the superego, psychosexual development of a child through
five phases and Oedipus complex. The defense mechanisms are also there to
explain human psychology elaborately. As the genre of psychological novel gained
popularity in that era, writers were highly inspired by Freud.
Karl Marx, the German
philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, and political theorist, was
always against the class-discrimination in the society. Rather, he promoted
‘Communism’ that is equality in the society. The bourgeoise class was emerged
during the Industrial Revolution and this class dominated the working class
people. This domination became extreme in the 20th century since
industrialization reached its peak at that time. The writers of this
century, too, have highlighted this discrimination and sufferings of poor
people.
The German philosopher and critic Friedrich Nietzche has famously stated "God Is Dead" in his book God Is Dead. This statement also appears in the book Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Here, God is not any metaphysical being, rather a set of ideological principles of virtues. He abandons all the faith and moral standards. According to Nietzche UBERMENSCH (Superman) understands that God is dead. In order to survive in the world of nihilism and existentialism, every human being should develop a Superman in their own selves in order to create their own values and identities, excel and inspire others;.
"The Will To Power" is the dominant characteristic of Superman.
""The Will To Power" is the essence of life. It is the constant drive to improve our lives, our desire to preserve, to survive, acquire power over others."- Friedrich Nietzche
Charles Darwin's theory of evolution and the study of eugenics have made a remarkable progress in science. In the book The Origin of Species, he has stated that human beings have been evolved through five major stages of evolution. to get themselves developed on the earth from their ape-like ancestors. The stages are:
- Mutation
- Genetic recombination
- Chromosomal abnormalities
- Reproductive isolation and
- Natural selection
Darwin has devoted several pages of his autobiographical book Autobiografia to a discussion of his family members and their respective contributions. He describes their efforts to tutor him and suggests that their diverse attempts worked as an ample facade for him to learn in a prodigious way. However, he has attributed his intellectual progress to "nature", not "nurture". He expresses his beliefs precisely while speaking about his brother Erasmus Darwin:
"I do not think I owe much to him intellectually, nor to my four sisters. I am inclined to agree with in believing that education and environment produce only a small effect on the mind of any one, the most of our qualities are innate."
Darwin firmly believes that intellectual behaviours develop from the primitive instincts of our non-human ancestors and the difference between human and animal intelligence is a matter of degree, not of kind.
Darwin has left a phenomenal effect in shaping the literature of the late 19th century and the 20th century. His "Survival of the fittest" has a profound impact on literary figures like Alfred Lord Tennyson and Robert Browning since they are torn between their faith in religion and scientific progress of their time. Henrik Ibsen's A Doll House and Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure depict a ruthless Darwinian world where the protagonists fail to survive because they cannot adapt to the changing social environment.
In this piece of work, we have focused on lots of significant topics which work as a crystal lens of the 20th century. The truculent effects of the First World War, the themes, literature, and philosophies of Modernism are widely discussed. The Modernism movement is an integral part of English literature and worthy of study and exploration.
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