MODERNISM

1900-1950 S
 DEFINITION
• Modernism is the reaction of
artists and writers to the new
society formed because of
industrialization.
THE WORLD AS A
WASTELAND
WORLD AS A WASTELAND
BEFORE WWI
WORLD AS A WASTELAND
AFTER WWI
 CHARACTERISTICS OF
MODERNISM
1. Instability 2. Futility
3. Pessimism
 5. Loss of faith (nihilism,

4. Chaos the rejection of all religious and moral principles as

the only means of obtaining social progress)
 6. COLLAPSE OF “MORALITY”

Prohibition, “flappers,” more open about sexuality, drug-use

7. DISILLUSIONMENT :
A FEELING OF DISAPPOINTMENT
R E S U LT I N G F RO M T H E D I S C OV E RY
T H AT S O M E T H I N G I S N O T A S G O O D
AS ONE BELIEVED IT TO BE
 R E C A P - W H AT A R E T H E S E V E N
C H A R AC T E R I S T I C S O F M O D E R N I S M ?

1. Instability 5. Loss of faith

2. Futility 6. Collapse of “Morality”

3. Pessimism 7. Disillusionment

4. Chaos
 IDEAL AMERICAN DREAM
Endless Opportunities— “New Eden”

Progress—Life should keep getting better

and better

The independent, self-reliant individual will

triumph
 LITERARY
MODERNISM: 1900 -1950
ASPECTS
- high degree of experimentation.

- characters most often alienated

- people searching unsuccessfully for meaning and

love in their lives

- themes pulled from real life.

 AFTER THE GREAT WAR

 The devastation of World War I brought about an end to the

sense of optimism that characterized the years leading up to the
war.

 This more negative, or realistic, view of the world, and the

technological advances, gave birth to Modernism
T H E M O D E R N I S T E R A OV E R A L L
 Rejection of Romanticism and the advent of moral uncertainty
• the catastrophe of World War I
• (there is an aspect of the novel that will allude to this destruction)
• Country lost its innocence

 Embracing the new i.e. mechanization and industrialization

• (cars)
• new (replaceable) fashions – short skirts and bobbed hair
• mass entertainment

 Using new means of Representation

• the development of cinema,
• the mass media and advertising
Played a major role in
the change of attitudes
 MODERNISM
Because of the chaos there was a longing for order.

Modernists mistrusted the possibility of absolute truth and

idealism.

In modernist literature “loose ends” were embraced rather

resolved clearly. What does this suggest about the truth?

The modernist generation produced utopian ideologies such

as communism, fascism, and futurism.
MAJOR INFLUENCES
WWI
• 32 countries and claimed the lives of over 20 million people
• new weapons b/c of technology
• Signals an end to idealism and ushered in an era marked by
hedonism*, political corruption, and ruthless business practices

The Jazz Age / Roaring Twenties

• “the greatest, gaudiest spree in history” (FSF)
• Young people rebelling against past + tradition
• Experimentation with fashion
 MAJOR INFLUENCES
Prohibition (1920-1933)
• Alcohol was made illegal
• Bootleggers= sold alcohol anyway
• Speakeasies= where alcohol was served despite prohibition

New Era for Women

• The right to vote (19th am.)
• Flapper= “an emancipated young woman who embraced new
fashions and urban attitudes of the day”
• More women working
SUPPORT FOR PROHIBITION
 Reformers had long believed
alcohol led to crime, child &
wife abuse, and accidents
 Supporters were largely from
the rural south and west
 The church affiliated Anti-
Saloon League and the
Women’s Christian Temperance
Union helped push the 18th
Amendment through
 SPEAKEASIES AND
BOOTLEGGERS
 Many Americans did not
believe drinking was a sin
 Most immigrant groups were
not willing to give up drinking
 To obtain liquor illegally,
drinkers went underground to
hidden saloons known as
speakeasies
 People also bought liquor
from bootleggers who smuggled
it in from Canada, Cuba and the
West Indies
 ORGANIZED CRIME
Al Capone was finally convicted
on tax evasion charges in 1931
 Prohibition contributed to
the growth of organized crime
in every major city
 Chicago became notorious
as the home of Al Capone – a
famous bootlegger
 Capone took control of the
Chicago liquor business by
killing off his competition
•The Volstead Act Prohibition
1920-1933
• 18th Amendment (1919)
• Bootleggers
• Sold, bought, consumed
alcohol.
•Gangsters abounded

Al Capone and a ‘connection’ Al Capone’s Cell in PA

 MAJOR INFLUENCES
The Great Depression
 Stock Market crashed in 1929
 Banks failed, businesses floundered, workers lost
job; 25% unemployed
 Farmers ruined and went West to find work. Tough times. Not many
jobs and too many people.
The New Deal (FDR)
 New Deal programs: relief for the hungry and homeless, recovery for
agriculture and business, and various economic reforms to prevent
such a severe depression from occurring again.
 LITERARY STYLES OF
MODERNISM
• Stream of consciousness narration: a narrative
mode which seeks to portray an individual’s
point of view by giving the written equivalent
of the character’s thought processes, either
through loose interior monologue or in
connection to action.
 JUXTAPOSITION

Two images that are otherwise not commonly

brought together appear side by side or
structurally close together, thereby forcing the
reader to stop and reconsider the meaning of the
text through the contrasting images, ideas, motifs,
etc.
C H A R AC T E R I S T I C S O F M O D E R N I S M I N
A M E R I C A N L I T E R AT U R E
 Emphasis on bold experimentation in style and form,
reflecting the fragmentation of society.
 Interest in the inner workings of the human mind,
sometimes expressed through new narrative techniques
such as stream of consciousness
 A new kind of hero who is flawed and disillusioned
yet honorable and courageous
 Questioning of traditional beliefs and social
structures
 Rejection of traditional themes and subjects. Loss of
faith in religion and society.
 Sense of disillusionment and loss of faith in the
American Dream
 Literary Achievements
1. Dramatization of the plight of women.

2. Creation of a literature of the urban experience.

3. Continuation of the pastoral or rural spirit.

4. Continuation of regionalism and local color.

 Modernism and the Self

1. In this period, the chief characteristic of the self is one of alienation. The
character belongs to a "lost generation" (Gertrude Stein), suffers from a
"dissociation of sensibility" (T. S. Eliot), and who has "a Dream deferred"
(Langston Hughes).

2. Alienation led to an awareness about one's inner life.

MODERNISM MAJOR
THEME TOPICS
1. American Dream / Rags-to-riches

2. Decadence and decay

3. violence and alienation

4. Anxiety regarding the past decadence

and decay

5. loss and despair (disillusionment)

 MODERNISM MAJOR
THEME TOPICS
1. Loneliness and isolation

2. Critique of the traditional values / rejection of

history

3. Race relations / Violence & Alienation

4. Gender relations (and the passage of 19th Amendment in 1920

giving women the right to vote. )
 MAJOR THEME TOPICS
CONTINUED
10. Collectivism versus individualism
11. unavoidable change and a longing
for a return to innocence
12. Changing moral values
13. Breakdown of social norms and
cultural sureties / Decadence &
Decay
14. the search for a ground of meaning
in a world without God
MODERNISM THEME TOPICS

15. The Jazz Age.

16. Prohibition of the production, sale, and
consumption of alcoholic beverages, 1920-33.
17.The stock-market crash of 1929 and the Depression
of the 1930s and their impact.
18. The American Dream
 WRITERS OF THE
1920S
 Writer F. Scott Fitzgerald coined the phrase
“Jazz Age” to describe the 1920s
 Fitzgerald wrote Paradise Lost and The
Great Gatsby
 The Great Gatsby reflected the emptiness
of New York elite society and the myth &
reality of the American Dream
These are the issues at the core of F.
Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby
 F. SCOTT FITZGERALD

The wave of wealth

and prosperity in the
American 1920s led to a
widespread criticism of
materialism and
consumption by many
Modern authors, notably
by Fitzgerald in his novel
The Great Gatsby.
F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
The Great Gatsby questions the
American obsession with wealth,
pointing out many of the flaws
inherent in an idea of “success”
built around wealth.
Implies that the American
Dream might be dying – the
positive aspects of the Dream
might be being forgotten in favor
of material wealth.
F SCOTT FITZGERALD
Descendent from “prominent” American stock
Attended Princeton but left without graduating
Missed WWI (just)
Met Zelda but couldn’t afford to marry her
Published This Side of Paradise in 1920 at the age of 24:
instant stardom
Married Zelda, his “golden girl”
Wrote “money-making” popular fiction for most of his
life, mainly for the New York Post: $4000 a story (which
equates to about $50,000 today)
He and Zelda were associated with high living of the Jazz
Age
 FITZGERALD CONTINUED
A daughter, Scotty
Wrote what is considered his masterpiece, The Great
Gatsby, in Europe in 1924-25
Zelda has an affair and Gatsby poorly received
Attempts to earn a clean literary reputation were disrupted
by his reputation as a drunk
Zelda becomes mentally unstable
Moved to Hollywood as a screen writer
Dies almost forgotten aged 45
Zelda perished in a mental hospital fire in 1948
Only became a “literary great” in the 1960’s
Is The Great Gatsby a period
piece, or does the novel step
outside its time and address
universal themes?