3/22/ The literary period in the interwar period that deals with the modern world

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1 The literary period in the interwar period that deals with the modern world On or about December 1910 human nature changed. All human relations shifted and when human relations change there is at the same time a change in religion, conduct, politics, and literature. -- Virginia Woolf We are the hollow men We are the stuffed men Leaning together Headpiece filled with straw p Our dried voices, when We whisper together Are quiet and meaningless As wind in dry grass Or rat s feet over broken glass In our dry cellar LEADING UP TO THE WAR: Growth in industrial power Increase in immigrants (Europe and Asia) Transcontinental Railroad Henry Ford and the Model T Powered Airplanes Mobilized industry, technology and cause an uproot of soldiers and civilians Caused deep distrust of international politics which created a desire to return the nation to post war ways: Ex Exclusionary Immigration Acts Accelerated social and political change stock market crash that didn t end until after WWII Atomic Bomb- ends war and US is established as leading political and industrial power 1

2 19 th Amendment- women gain the right to vote! NAACP formed African American men participate in war as soldiers Russian Revolution: 1917 a totalitarian system of government in which a single authoritarian i party controls stateowned means of production totalitarian principle of government, predominance of especially Germanic groups assumed to be racially superior, and supremacy of the führer that exalts nation and often race above the individual centralized autocratic govt. headed by a dictator Communism Nazism Fascism Indoor electricity and appliances Motion pictures and recordings Print media AUTOMOBILE!! Quantum Theory Principle of Uncertainty Schrödinger's Cat Multi-verse Theory Freud and the unconscious The Great Depression, Prohibition Aesthetics that represented the transformation of traditional society under pressures of modernity, and breaks down traditional literary forms Focused on loss Viewed the modern world as a scene of loss Affected sculpting, painting, dance, music, and literature Picasso, Juan Gris, Georges Braque New York Armory Show of

3 Georges Braque Juan Gris Dissonance and contrasting harmonies Igor Stravinsky s Rite or Spring 1. Pessimistic View, depressed and straightforward tone, loss of hope, confused 2. People did not question values but rather followed like sheep. 3. Structures of human life had been destroyed in all ways and replaced with a feeling of emptiness. Constructed out of fragments- stories might come in pieces rather than a whole Omits vital things for the audience to conclude about- explanations, summaries, connections, and interpretations Epiphany- the moment of revelation in a story Point of View shifts between characters Narrator often writes in Stream of Consciousness Stream of Consciousness- portraying the characters inner thoughts as they occur Unreliable narrator- because POV shifts and things are omitted. (as opposed to the 19 th century 3 rd person narrator) 3

4 Connect works to the past Borrowed structures t and parallels Create order and truth based off of history Modernist believed that meaning came from human construction so they rejected the search for meaning over didactic statement Theme is more important than plot Mocking of the middle class and American dream Prose became: Direct and compressed, vivid, vague, and altogether shorter Poems became: Shorter, non-rhyming, free from past form and mechanics Overall the tone and plot represented the emotions of society and reflected the results of historical events hero relies on pride, competence, the will to go on, and ability to exhibit grace under pressure Seen as an attack on Romantic and Realist protagonists Writers often attempt to satirize the American Dream through the plight of the hero A man of action, had a code of honor, courage, endurance; disillusioned character who knows that defeat is inevitable but still plays the game LMBs Thought that the only victory that could be won from life lay in the accepting the few moments of pleasure available life is a game, but don t expect to profit from playing. 4

5 What is Modernist Literature? What factors caused the shift to Modernism? How do the works attack the American Dream? How are the values and feelings of society reflected in the works? 5