This particular passage demonstrates the type of eloquent, verbose writing
that Douglass could use so effectively to evoke in readers a sense of awe
reminiscent reading of Greek mythology. The diction that he uses is sophisticated,
obviously the mark of an educated man; Douglass was well-known for his flourished
writing, in which many believe lies the power of his oratory (Lowance). His
sentences flow very well, and appear to be almost poetic in nature, reminiscent
of stirring musical ballads. Also, an allusion to religion is present, another
common theme in Douglass' writing. He refers to freedom as heaven, which subsequently
places slavery in the position of hell. Douglass had very strong feelings
about religion and its place in the South: "I assert most unhesitatingly,
that the religion of the south is a mere covering for the most horrid crimes,
- a justifier of the most appalling barbarity (Douglass, 72)…" However,
as often as religion appeared to be attacked in the Narrative, Douglass loved
the "pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ," but
hated the "corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradleplundering, partial
and hypocritical Christianity of this land [America] (Douglass, 100)."
In addition, this particular metaphor used by Douglass to signify the evolution
of his psychology from that of a acquiescent, servile slave to a strong, free-willed
man brings to mind images of a lone, beaten hero rising triumphantly from
the confines of a dark tomb to the freedom of the outside world; this is a
particularly strong, vivid piece of imagery used by Douglass. Again, this
illustrates the tendency of American writers during this period - especially
those writers who themselves were members of a minority - to write stories
in which the underdogs were the ones who would rise up and triumph to become
unexpected heroes. The styles with which Romantic writers wrote was crucial
to the creation of an atmosphere of awe and admiration of the common American,
and was unique to the Romantic period in the way that writers relied heavily
on stylistic devices - stirring imagery, flowing syntax, and striking diction
- to enhance the standings of these characters in the eyes of the readers.
Slavery continued to be a rather controversial topic for many decades to follow.
As the late nineteenth century approached, conflicts over various things -
including slavery - escalated to the point of no return between the North
and the South, splitting the country in half and bringing the nation to the
verge of the American Civil War. The Civil War, the first major conflict between
Americans, inflicted significant damage to the nation, both physically to
the landscape and politically to the government as well. The years after this
particularly traumatizing event symbolized for many Americans a time of healing
and recovery, but it was during this time that the writers of the Romantic
period began to clash with the new Realist writers who, emerging as the nation
steadily went through the process of industrialization, focused on topics
and styles of writing that were rather different from those of the Romanticists.
After the adoption of the Constitution early in the nineteenth century, America
was still an overwhelmingly agrarian society. However, across the Atlantic
Ocean, Britain, previously America's oppressor but now their good comrade,
was repudiating its mainly agricultural way of life and embracing new technology
for the ease and proficiency it lent to the mass production of goods in what
was to be named the Industrial Revolution. The British Empire being, at the
time, the most powerful empire on the planet, inspired other countries, particularly
America, to follow in its embrace of industry. Finally, the transfer of the
new technologies used in Britain across the Atlantic led to the creation of
America's first industrial factories, enormous mills where hundreds could
be employed at a time. However, it wasn't until the years after the Civil
War that the second wave of the Industrial Revolution, or the "Gilded
Age," truly hit America. Old industries, such as the cloth industry,
expanded, and many new ones, such as steel manufacturing and electrical power,
emerged. This increase in the number of industries and the demand for their
products led to the development of mass production to serve the needs of the
country, but perhaps more importantly, it called for more workers. People
from all over America swarmed to the cities in search of jobs, and it was
this sudden increase in employment that led to the rise of America's middle-class.
The Realists came to the forefront of American literature at the height of
the Industrial Revolution, whose subjects were usually drawn from the lives
of the ordinary men and women "from the rapidly growing cities, from
the factories that were rapidly replacing farmlands", and, also stated
in Elements of Literature, "the lives of far from idealized characters."
American Realism states that realists sought to "give shape to life's
meaning by seeing into human experience, rather then seeing through it to
spirit, ideal, or godhead…," abandoning the idealistic writings
of the romanticists for the nitty-gritty of human life.
Emerging alongside the Industrial Revolution was the feminist movement, born
out of the social reforms caused by the influx of jobs. Women everywhere began
to challenge "the foundations of a patriarchal society," and in
the 1890s the new woman came into existence - "independent, outspoken,
iconoclastic" - and was "an important part of the era's flouting
of middle-class convention" (Tichi, 122). At that time it was the traditional
role placed on women by society to devote themselves fully to their families
and homes, and it is this devotion that Kate Chopin openly mocks in her novel
The Awakening, which embodies the key ideas that emerged during the Realism
era - in a more forthright manner than most - and represents an age where
traditional views on the role and behavior of people - women, in particular
- began to change. It should not go unmentioned that Chopin herself was a
widow and a mother of six, and it was in the character of Edna Pontellier
that she satirized "marriages which masquerade as decrees of Fate"
and the "women who idolized their children, worshipped their husbands,
and esteemed it a holy privilege to efface themselves as individuals and grow
wings as ministering angels" (Tichi, 123). The new woman was unconventional
and rejected the norms of society, seeking for personal fulfillment rather
than adhering to the "values of the virtuous, home-loving woman in her
proper domestic sphere." It is in these respects that Edna Pontellier
can - and should - be classified as the most rebellious female figure in the
new woman's writing. She said it herself: "I would give up the unessential;
I would give up my money, I would give my life for my children; but I wouldn't
give myself." Her unwillingness to sacrifice herself - her livelihood,
her life - more than adequately represents the sentiment of the new woman
towards traditional values.
Chopin took a similar position against the traditional forms and styles of
literature. Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, a history professor at Emory University,
had this to remark about Chopin's writing: "She was a pre-eminent stylist
and she was as much interested I think in how you told the story as the story
itself. In that sense - perspective, point of view, craft, use of imagery,
multiple perspectives - this legacy of appearance in reality which can be
seen to come somewhat out of the New Orleans experience that things are not
always what they seem and they seem different to different players."
The full-extent of Chopin's style is demonstrated in The Awakening. The novel
takes place in French Creole Louisiana, an area that Chopin herself is quite
familiar with herself, and the feel of which shows through in her writing.
The characters speak in formal, lilting sentences, and switch easily between
English and French: "Par exemple! I never had to ask. You were always
there under my feet, like a troublesome cat" (Chopin, 14), true to the
actual speech patterns of that area. Chopin also provided rich descriptions
of this area in her novel, creating vivid images of their affluent, leisurely
lifestyles. It was also in French Creole Louisiana where many of the traditional
guidelines which bounded women elsewhere in America did not apply; Chopin
chose to highlight this aspect of society in French Creole Louisiana in the
way that Edna, a rather conventional and innocent women, "awakens"
and discovers herself through her relations with the women there and, most
importantly, with the young man that she eventually falls in love with. The
women, in particular, are portrayed as very strong, independent, and even
masculine in their actions, in the way that they "sip wine and spirits,
smoke cigarettes, and enjoy men's risqué stories" (Tichi, 127).
Chopin's style was characteristic of the Realistic period, during which American
writers began to relinquish the highly fictionalized fairy tales written during
the Romantic period for stories that were closer to the lives of normal American
citizens. However, as the Industrial Revolution began to hit its stride, American
writers became more and more enamored with the dark side of the human psyche,
taking the value that Realists held of writing close to reality one step further
to emphasize negativity in our lives.
Early twentieth century America was the prime environment in which motivations
for the "peculiarly American murder" that Theodore Dreiser had sought
as a basis for An American Tragedy were widespread. America was at the height
of the Industrial Revolution and, accordingly, the American population - especially
the large percentage that was underprivileged - had been seized by wild dreams
of riches and success. The rapidly expanding cities drew people from as far
as the most remote areas in the countryside who were in pursuit of the American
dream and who believed that they would be able to achieve it by working in
the factories. Mass production resulted in all time lows in prices, allowing
those who had never before enjoyed the fineries of life to purchase items
indicative of luxury and class. The American dream appeared to no longer be
a life restricted to only those who had been born into good societal positions,
and it was the illusion that it was so close at hand and entirely possible
to achieve that changed the very nature and psychology of those who were seeking
it.
In the American Tragedy, Clyde Griffiths, the young protagonist, is similarly
afflicted. Because of his background as an unhappy boy of an impoverished
yet highly religious family, it is no shock that Clyde was blinded as he was
by the affluent society that he had admired from afar for so long. And as
time passes after his coincidental meeting with his rich uncle, Clyde realizes
that he is getting closer and closer to entering that society, and so great
is this desire to be accepted into their ranks that Clyde's entire mental
disposition changes, his mind twisted by the allure of the American Dream.
One prime example is of Clyde's relationship with the factory girl, Roberta
Alden. Upon their first meeting, when Clyde has just begun his job in his
uncle's factory in New York, he is enamored with her, and sets about courting
her despite factory rules prohibiting such relationships. However, as he becomes
more established in that society and begins to branch out into the affluent
society, he realizes that Roberta is nothing but a poor girl, even worse off
financially and socially than he is, and suddenly he is disgusted by her.
This disgust reaches a high point as Clyde grows closer with the affluent
youth of New York on top of the news of Roberta's pregnancy. His maddening
internal struggles contemplating murder drove him near the brink of insanity:
"And whisper, whisper - let your language be soft, your tone tender,
loving, even. It must be, if you are to win her to your will now. So the Efrit
of his own darker self" (Dreiser, 492). This particular passage is evidence
to the extent which Clyde's psychological deterioration now affected him;
he was having frequent hallucinations in which an Efrit, a sort of evil djinn
or spirit that had the power of supernaturally influencing people's actions,
in the form of a black bird would appear forebodingly in the distance. The
Efrit, which in actuality is Clyde's subconscious, finally succeeds in prompting
him to commit the murder of the factory girl that he had once loved for the
rich girl who happens to coincide with his obsession with beauty and material
wealth. The manifestation of Clyde's psyche in this physical form that pushes
him to commit the murder is Dreiser trying to implicate that the full responsibility
of the crime did not fall on Clyde's shoulders alone; ultimately, what Dreiser
called "natural forces," such as the conditions in which Clyde was
brought up, pushed him into situations in which he was highly vulnerable to
such trains of though (Frohock). The severity of Clyde's downfall in his pursuit
of the American dream also suggests that Dreiser was implying that money is
indeed the root of all evil; due to his obsession with it that had been growing
for the entirety of his life, such an outcome was inevitable.
Like many other Naturalist writers, Dreiser relied on several stylistic techniques
characteristic of this period to illustrate the different states that Clyde's
psyche undergoes. The text of the American Tragedy, being dense and highly
detailed, is rather innovative for this period, but was found by many critics
to be too long and rambling. Dreiser's sentences are characteristically long
and blunt, containing no poetic flow; Dreiser tends to explain everything
to the reader and leaves nothing up to interpretation. This is most likely
due to Dreiser's background as a journalist, trained to record only what was
necessary with no embellishments; many critics believe this bare-bones style
of writing is where the intensity of Dreiser's novels lies. Like many other
Naturalists, Dreiser wrote with, perhaps, too much style, tending to be "over
elaborate, wordy, perhaps pompous, sometimes even arch" (Frohock). It
was in this way, however, that many writers represented the human psyche.
Since so many novels of this time dealt with the inner workings of the human
mind, Dreiser's style can be compared to the thought process itself which,
at times, does tend to run very quickly. And in order to illustrate the dark
side of the human psyche, Dreiser relied on tone, writing very dramatically:
He must go west and then south. He must not get turned about!
But the repeated cry of that bird, - harsh, nerve shaking. And then the gloom,
in spit of the summer stars. And a youth making his way through the dark,
uninhabited wood, a dry straw hat upon his head, a bag in his hand, walking
briskly and yet warily - south - south (Dreiser, 515).
This particular passage seems to exude a sense of franticness and gloom, particularly
in the way Dreiser used parenthetical statements ("... - harsh, nerve
shaking," "… - south - south.") at the ends of sentences
to represent certain thoughts. Dreiser's diction itself is not of a particularly
high education level, as is evidenced in this passage, but it's his syntax
that tends to confuse many of his readers. Having not received a formal education
himself, Dreiser drew the majority of his knowledge of the English language
from those around him, particularly from his immigrant parents. In addition,
Dreiser's intense attention to detail contributes greatly to imagery, a technique
that many Naturalist writers relied on to tell their stories.
The arrival of the Naturalists on the literary scene coincided with the rise
of the realists, which is why the naturalists are sometimes called the "new
realists." While the realists did tread on new ground when they abandoned
the idealistic writings of the romanticists and chose instead to portray the
ordinary, the naturalists took this concept one step further and, as stated
in Elements of Literature, "relieved heavily on the growing scientific
disciplines of psychology and sociology." The novels written during the
Naturalist period were stories of the lowest of the low in human existence.
No characters were every entirely free of some guilt; the young girl that
Clyde accidentally impregnates in the story made the first mistake by giving
into lust and temptation and allowing him into her bed. Most of all, Naturalist
writers wanted to emphasize the effect that growing up in harsh environments
had on the development of the human mind. In Clyde's case, he was raised in
an isolated, strict, and highly religious household. He was not allowed to
participate in activities that other kids of his age were able to, and his
daily observations of them at school and at play only heightened his sense
of alienation from the rest of society, prompting an inevitable backlash.
American Realism describes Dreiser as being particularly skilled in showing
how, "given certain hereditary and environmental conditions, what did
happen had to happen." Accordingly, the bitter, disgruntled, and underprivileged
population that was now flocking to the cities in search of money was ideal
fodder for the novels of Naturalist writers.
Major events that took place in the early twentieth century, however, brought
about massive changes in American society. During the beginning of the century
the Progressive movement gripped the country. A substantial part of the American
population was clamoring for reform of society and of the government in general.
No longer satisfied with sitting idly while their already poor condition worsened
as a result of widespread corruption in positions of power, the common man
rose up to confront the problems in society head on. Courageous journalists
known as muckrakers made it their business to expose the dirty deeds committed
by political bosses. Farmers and laborers began to realize the potential for
power in numbers, and started to organize in unions. The political scene in
America was now boiling. However, America was so focused on domestic affairs
that when World War I started in Europe, no one was aware of the impact that
this war would have on American society. It was this war that was the point
in which the American literary movement changed gears and the early Modern
movement started. The amount of death that proliferated on the battlefields
and even in civilian populated areas in England was so shocking that the effects
of it hit America mentally as hard as it hit the population of Europe because
thousands of American soldiers were dying and getting injured alongside the
European population. World War I prompted a major overhaul of the previously
established norms of American society. People became disillusioned with their
lives and began to live their lives as if they had not a care in the world,
dedicated only to their own personal fulfillment. There was social experimentation,
especially on the part of women, and a seeming abandonment of morals as people
began to engage remorselessly in illegal activities. It was during this period
in which all traditional values were disregarded that Modern writers documented
the change in American ideologies in their writing.
Modernism marked a departure from all previous literary periods in writing
styles. While there was some reflection and revisiting of past subject matters,
Modern writers concentrated much more on the form and structure of their writing
than writers in previous years (Reuben). Writers also began to take artistic
liberties with their writing styles, breaking from the traditional structure
of syntax and form that is most visible in the works of writers of the Romantic
period. With these new stylistic innovations in writing, many writers chose
yet again to revisit old subject matter. F. Scott Fitzgerald, for example,
in his novel the Great Gatsby, returns to the
American Dream and examines the human psyche in relation to it.
The Great Gatsby takes place in the decadent 1920s, the decade during which
America was enjoying such general prosperity that it seems that all people
did during these years was party and accumulate material possessions; Fitzgerald
nicknamed these years "the most expensive orgy in history." No longer
was the aim of having a job simply the sustentation of life but the gain of
money with which to shop for aesthetic pleasure. The stock market also made
it possible for literally anyone to strike it rich, the path that many greedy
young people took instead of an honest, hard-working job. It was this population
of young, rich people that took such a hedonistic, ne'er-do-well attitude
towards life that ultimately corrupted the American Dream and its noble goals.
However, the new rich did face opposition from the old rich. The novel focused
in part on the clash between the old and the new - much like the conflicts
occurring between the traditionalists and the progressives in society at that
time. The contrast that is emphasized the most in The Great Gatsby is the
differences between the old rich and the new rich. The old rich was comprised
of the nation's old aristocracy, portrayed in the novel as graceful, elegant,
and subtle. The old rich did not flaunt their wealth but were very classy
and reserved. The new rich, however, was represented in the mannerisms of
Jay Gatsby. His particular character was always described as wearing gaudy
suits - such as "a white flannel suit, silver shirt, and gold colored
tie" for his "coincidental" meeting with Daisy at Nick's house
- and driving showy cars, which connotes that the new rich were constantly
flaunting their affluence. It is in this way that Gatsby decides to pursue
Daisy after the war: he buys an extravagant house that is purposely situated
right across the lake from her house; wild parties are constantly held in
the hopes that someday she would miraculously wander in with the usual crowd
of partygoers; and when he has finally reestablished a connection with Daisy,
the first thing he does is to take her on a tour of his mansion, hoping to
impress her with his sprawling gardens and excessively decorated rooms. Daisy
is obviously impressed with this spectacular show of wealth, showing the invulnerability
that all men have to the allure of riches - and the question of how Gatsby
was able to procure such a ridiculous amount of wealth to be able to maintain
such a lifestyle never occurred to her.
The reader is not given a comprehensive account of Gatsby's life or behavior
prior to the present events in the novel, but one can theorize that Gatsby
had changed considerably due to his shameful pursuit of the American Dream,
a fate not unlike that of Clyde's in An American Tragedy. It is not clear
what exactly his business activities were after the war, but it was obvious
that they were illegal. The fact that they were illegal did not matter to
Gatsby as long as he was able to make a substantially large amount of money;
possessed as he was with an insane hatred for being in an impoverished condition,
he was willing to do anything to keep himself from regressing to that status
in society. Through these dealings Gatsby quickly procured an enormous amount
of money and was now a renowned member of the upper crust of society, a status
that he most likely had never enjoyed before and which eventually blinded
him so fully that he lost sight of all reality and was living a world where
he was the king. Impoverished as his childhood was, there was no doubt that
Gatsby had no idea as to how rich people actually acted; his own behavior
was most likely gathered from his observations of the behaviors of those that
he interacted with, but clearly embellished with some of his own daydreams.
But no matter how awkward Gatsby was, he discovered that no one cared as long
as he was able to remain rich. The majority of people attending Gatsby's parties
were not even his own personal acquaintances, but people who had heard of
the reputation of his parties. Due to these experiences, Gatsby's confidence
in his ability to regain Daisy was falsely bolstered; Gatsby had become so
empowered by his money that he innocently thought it entirely possible for
him to buy Daisy's love back with it and for things to return to their state
prior to the war, hence his confusion and anger when things did not go according
to plan:
She [Daisy] began to sob helplessly. "I did love him
[Tom] once - but I loved you [Gatsby] too." Gatsby's eyes opened and
closed. "You loved me too?" he repeated. "Even that's a lie,"
said Tom savagely… "Why, - there're things between Daisy and me
that you'll never know, things that neither of us can ever forget." The
words seemed to bite physically into Gatsby (Fitzgerald, 140).
This particularly tumultuous argument between Daisy, Gatsby, and Tom in the
hotel room at the Plaza Hotel signifies, perhaps, symbolizes a confrontation
between the ideologies of the old and the new. The ambitious, overconfident
attitudes of the new rich proved to be nothing against the powerful, stolid
old rich in the end. Even if Daisy still had some love left for Gatsby, she
was no longer entirely his, a realization that Gatsby took rather hard after
five years of dreaming of their glorious reunification. And when Tom began
to hint to Daisy at the criminal nature of Gatsby's past dealings, Gatsby
had had enough and began to appeal to Daisy in desperation as his virtuous
image now lay in shattered pieces. This clearly demonstrates that through
his writing, Fitzgerald was judging the new generation of hedonists and their
lack of foresight and planning. Being a young man himself when he wrote this
novel, Fitzgerald himself fell prey to the fervor of the 1920s; he admitted
to have been an alcoholic and also to have attended many parties like the
ones described in his novel. However, Fitzgerald remained focused on his perception
of the Twenties as an era of possibilities and aspirations: "It was an
age of miracles, it was an age of art, it was an age of excess, and it was
an age of satire" (x).
The breaking from tradition in the Great Gatsby is also exemplified in Fitzgerald's
highly complex writing style. One prominent example is the chronology of the
book. The events in this novel are supposed to have occurred within a three
month period (Nick's dinner with the Buchanans takes place in early June;
Gatsby's funeral is in early September), but with Fitzgerald's use of such
general language regarding time ("a few days," "several weeks,"
"about six weeks," etc.), the events of novel are assumed by readers
to have taken place in a considerably larger amount of time. In addition,
The Great Gatsby contained a number of flashbacks that were central to the
story. This required the reader to have to actually reconstruct the actual
procession of events, thus actively participating in the story itself. Another
example of Fitzgerald's innovative writing style is his choice in narration.
Nick Carraway, the narrator, is not the main character of the novel but is,
instead, a mere bystander who is only partially involved in the events of
the novel. The entire story is relayed through Nick, who presents it to the
audience as objectively as possible, but is at times forced to be a reluctant
judge: "No - Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed
on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily
closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of
men" (Fitzgerald, 6). For the majority of the story, however, the reader
is the one who has to play the role of the judge and to figure out exactly
what being said about the various characters is true and what is not. This
new level of interactivity between the reader and the story is only one example
of the various innovations in writing that occurred during this time. Fitzgerald's
writing style demonstrates some of these innovations. Returning to Fitzgerald's
choice for a narrator, Nick is remarkably effective in the task of setting
the tone for this novel. "It is the quality of his response to Gatsby
that at crucial moments compels our suspension of disbelief. The tranquil
tone of his recollected feelings gives the story its serenity and tempts some
of its admirers to compare it to a pastoral poem. Nick is everywhere he is
needed, but he never intrudes on a presented scene" (Shain). Because
writers no longer felt obligated to adhere to traditional styles of writing,
an entirely new literary movement began with their repudiation of conventional
writing.
On its first publication, The Great Gatsby was faced with disappointing sales
and a mixed
reception by the American population. Perhaps people were unsettled by the
messages that Fitzgerald had hidden within his text, that such glamorous lifestyles
characteristic of the Roaring Twenties were, ultimately, highly destructive.
However, as the years have passed, The Great Gatsby has been revived in the
literary world, and is now extremely popular. It being such an accurate and
unbiased description of Fitzgerald's own time, the novel has now become symbolic
of the 1920s. Because this decade has now been given such a trivial and vulgar
image by people who were never there to experience it firsthand, it is crucial
for America to have works of writing similar in nature to The Great Gatsby
that correctly assess controversial time periods.
Coinciding with the beginning of the Modern period was the emergence of a
distinctly American drama movement. It is largely agreed by many that until
this time in the early twentieth century, American drama was merely an imitation
of European drama, not unlike the claim made about American literature only
a century before. But now, a host of playwrights, who had been born and raised
in America and who were also instilled with the American spirit of the times,
were now coming into the limelight, "intent on experimenting with dramatic
style and form while also writing serious sociopolitical commentary"
that was markedly different from European style (Wainscott). In the plays
written during the first couple of decades of the twentieth century, the influence
from ideologies of the Modern movement is highly apparent. Eugene O'Neil's
stage debut, which is what is considered by many critics to be the definitive
start of American drama, raised the standards on American drama and led the
way in expressionism, in which "subjective feelings and emotions"
were emphasized rather then an objective view of reality. No longer were plays
destined to remain only simple, shallow pieces of work, but they could now
contain as much variety in expression and insight as a serious novel (Wainscott).
One of O'Neil's plays, the Hairy Ape (1922), is the story of a common ship
laborer, Yank, who feels that he has no place in society after his mere presence
in a room causes a woman to faint. Wandering the streets, he can find no place
in which he feels that he belongs until he arrives at the ape cage in the
zoo. Feeling as if he has finally found a brother, Yank sets the caged animal
free, only to be killed by him mere moments afterwards. The struggle that
Yank, a member of the lowest societal classes, goes through in this play to
find a place to belong is representative of the class struggle that still
exists today in America. The Hairy Ape exposed just how deeply and rigidly
class boundaries had become embedded into American culture itself.
The crash of the stock market and the beginning of the Great Depression, however,
signified an end to the previously relatively lighthearted mood that prevailed
in American drama. The collapse of America's economy hit much of the population
very hard, stirring much resentment for the government in particular as well
as the surfacing of new darker, radical feelings. These feelings inspired
a new wave of "hard-edged drama that tackled economic suffering, left-wing
political ideologies, fascism, and fears of another world war," the exact
topics that the government would have preferred to be kept out of the public's
eye and in the shadows (Wainscott). The Children's Hour, written by Lillian
Hellman in the midst of the Great Depression, boldly explores the topic of
lesbianism. Set in an all-girl boarding school, the drama explores the effects
of a simple outrageous claim about the two head-mistresses that is taken too
seriously. The reaction of the characters in the book to lesbianism is uncannily
similar to the reception that Hellman's play received in reality; initially,
it was banned in several major cities such as Boston and Chicago due to its
controversial theme, but garnered by many favorable reviews, the Children's
Hour became a great success. Another play written during this time was Our
Town by Thornton Wilder, a rather unconventional play set in a small, rather
isolated town named Grover's Corner. Wilder's inclusion of the character of
the Stage Manager, a sort of omniscient narrator who basically controlled
the entire play, was a complete departure from the traditional story-telling
format of plays. The Stage Manager served as a bridge between the audience
and the action on the stage, mostly conversing with and guiding audience members
through the story yet at times also stepping into the very midst of the play
to interact with the characters themselves. In addition to this innovative
technique employed in Our Town, the topics that it explored were considerably
morose. It is obvious that Wilder feels that we as a society are not enjoying
life enough and are letting time slip through our hands all too quickly; through
focusing on such mundane events as eating breakfast and feeding the chickens,
Wilder indicates the importance that he sees in things that the rest of society
had dismissed as trivial. The inevitability of death never occurs to the characters
in Our Town, and they rush around thinking they have all the time in the world
while they ignore all the things that hold the most meaning and value. Only
when one of the characters dies is the transience of human life finally acknowledged;
however, the inhabitants of Grover's Corner remain oblivious to this and continue
on, perpetuating the cycle of speeding through life without really appreciating
it. The American drama movement helped to bring many social and political
issues such as the ones covered in these plays to light, encouraging many
people to speak up.
As America moved into the second half of the twentieth century, it was clear
that one event had had a huge impact on the nation. Involving nearly all the
power players of the world, World War II brought with it almost complete destruction
of much of Europe, not to mention the millions of deaths - of soldiers as
well as civilians - it caused as well. Even though the majority of the fighting
took place in Europe, America herself did not remain unaffected as it had
been during World War I. The bombing of Pearl Harbor violently shattered the
sphere of safety and isolationism that had surrounded the nation. Prior to
Pearl Harbor, the citizens of the United States were living in a state of
blissful ignorance even as the war raged on in Europe. There had never been
as large and direct an attack on America before, leading the nation to believe
that such violence would never reach American shores. This outright attack
on American lives located on American soil was a serious reality check for
the nation, prompting the nation to reevaluate its status in the world (Reid).
World War prompted the Modern movement to gain even more momentum, if not
greatly spurring its development. The war changed the lives of many Americans
who had previously never experienced so much outside of what they were familiar
with before. Being of such a globally encompassing nature, the war completely
altered many people's perspectives of the world and of their place in it.
Men and women returned to America infused with a spirit that clearly saw all
the wrongs in American society and that demanded change. No longer were these
lower class people, who had so willingly served their country, going to be
treated as if they were less than full citizens. Contrasting with this surge
of enthusiasm for justice, however, was a cloud of depressing sentiments that
clung about, having resulted from the horrors of the war. Many young veterans
suffered from shellshock, continually and involuntarily haunted by the war
that was already over. Most of them were cursed to never again be able to
live normally among their families and friends. But soldiers were not the
only ones who felt these feelings of confusion, detachment, and disillusionment
(Reid). Although the war had a considerably less damaging impact on the many
Americans who were not fighting on the front lines, it still noticeably changed
society. The veil that had previously been covering the American nation's
eyes had now been lifted, and it dawned that the world was a much darker place
than the government had been allowing the rest of the nation to see. Whatever
reasons the government had for keeping the American nation isolated from the
harsh realities that existed in the rest of the world, this paternal move
to protect the American nation ultimately guaranteed an even more powerful
shock from the war. These changes in society, the most important of which
was the further deterioration of ideologies and traditions that had had such
a hand in judging people's lives, ultimately had a distinct effect on those
who had never even actively participated in the war effort.
One marked distinction of the works produced by Modern writers after World
War II was the increasing focus on the psychology of the characters, returning
once again to the individual as seen during the Romantic period (Reid). Writers
also began to embrace a complete departure from the "normal" psychological
processes seen during Naturalism. Naturalist writers had continued to follow
a logical procession of thoughts that was coherent, at the least; in the case
of An American Tragedy, Clyde's inner struggles are clearly broadcast, showing
him to be an impulsive, forceful person, so it is no surprise that the first
girl he is obsessively smitten with is the one which he forces to have sex.
When she discovers that she is pregnant, and that Clyde will actually have
to assume some responsibility, Clyde immediately shies away and moves on to
the next girl that catches his eyes. Lacking any rational train of thought
now, he reasons with himself that it is absolutely necessary to kill the factory
girl that he impregnated in order to keep her quiet. Once the act is done,
it seems that all is right with the world, but slowly, his guilt starts to
devour him from the inside even though he puts on an innocent façade.
Modern writers, however, took this psychological deterioration to a whole
new level, seemingly reveling in the complete fragmentation of the human psyche.
In their hands, readers were taken to the verge of insanity and back, often
using the most cryptic of narrative styles and leaving much up to the reader's
own interpretation.
Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five is the story of Billy Pilgrim, a war veteran.
His
story is not told in chronological order but instead flits sporadically through
different events, traversing his entire life from the moment of his birth
to the moment he is killed. The reason for this inconsistent structure is
that Billy had become "unstuck in time" and was now able to time
travel as he pleased; we are merely traveling with Billy to each event as
he came upon them while time traveling himself. In addition, we are introduced
to the Tralfamadorians, a race of aliens resembling upside-down toilet plungers
that abducted a middle-aged Billy the night after his daughter's wedding.
Despite the fact that he was unwillingly abducted, Billy enjoys his stay with
the Tralfamadorians, learning about their optimistic view of time while being
displayed in a zoo on their home planet. As Billy introduces time traveling
and then the Tralfamadorians, one immediately grows more and more skeptical
as to the degree of truth of his story, which, accordingly, leads to this
question: what caused such bizarre mental activity? This is quickly answered
as Billy begins to share the part of his life spent in Europe during World
War II, and especially the infamous firebombing of Dresden. It is common knowledge
that all participants of war have not been left unscathed by the experience,
both physically and mentally, and his particularly horrifying experience in
the bombing of Dresden during World War II most likely accounts for Billy's
lack of a grip on reality years after it ended. The return to a normal life
after the horrors of World War II obviously had a drastic toll on Bill's psyche
and his image of himself. Those experiences drove Billy to invent time traveling
and the Tralfamadorians to cope with the psychological damage he endured during
the war, and as he grew older he receded more and more into the fabrications
that were turning into his reality, the only place that remained where he
could go to feel safe as well as sane.
Similarly, Holden Caulfield of Catcher in the Rye faced psychological problems
as well. Readers know immediately that Holden is not in a sound mental state,
starting the story as he does by stating that he is undergoing treatment at
a mental hospital. Logically, the reader must assume that Holden must have
had some form of psychosis to have to be treated at a mental hospital; these
assumptions are proven correct as Holden spends the rest of the story detailing
his thought process from which the reader can easily trace the steady decline
of his mental health as he travels around in New York after flunking out of
his fourth school. Although the reader is not alerted to the full range of
symptoms of the condition that Holden suffers from, it is clear that he is
suffering from a self-identity crisis, particularly in terms of his maturity
level. Drawing from the events in the book Holden is obviously a young adult,
most likely in his late teens, but still has the mentality of a child that
is refusing to grow up and adapt to the adult world. The clearest example
of this desire is when Holden visits the Museum of Natural History and expresses
envy towards the statues of the Eskimos and the Indians and how they will
always remain the same. In addition, Holden also expresses frustration at
how every time he visited the museum he himself changed drastically, showing
a longing to be able to remain the same. Also, although Holden expresses this
desire to remain childlike, he also tries to portray himself as a mature figure.
He is constantly criticizing the people around him and commenting on his desires
for sex. However, Holden is clearly full of himself as at the last minute;
he backs out of sex with a prostitute that was sitting naked in his lap and
resorts instead to banal conversation to pass the time. The story reveals
Holden to have an uncertainty as to who he is in life. And in order to overcome
his mental insecurities, Holden forces himself to interact with the rest of
society, starting inane conversations just for the sake of talking:
"Hey Horwitz…You ever pass by the lagoon in Central
Park? Down by Central Park South? … Where the ducks are. You know…Well,
you know the ducks that swim around in it? In the springtime and all? Do you
happen to know where they go in the wintertime, by any chance? … I mean
does somebody come around in a truck or something and take them away, or do
they fly away by themselves - go south or something (Salinger, 81)?
This particular conversation, held with Horwitz the cab driver, illustrates
Holden's dual desire to stay young as well as to grow up at the same time.
His inquiry as to the whereabouts of the ducks during the winter betrays his
childlike mindset, yet still he insists on acting older than his age: "Would
you care to stop off and have a drink with me somewhere?" he inquires
of Horwitz just before he exits the cad. Acting as he does, the human interaction
that he craves ultimately serves to perpetuate his mental instability; the
more he tries to engage with others, the more he is pushed away due to his
awkward behavior. Such analyses of human behavior were common subjects of
Modern novels.
Although it appears that Modernism does not appear to have any single common
characteristic concerning style, it can be said that the literature produced
during this period was similar in the way that the writers all strove to carve
their own niche in the literary world by expressing themselves in the most
uncensored form. Vonnegut's narration of Billy Pilgrim's life is extremely
ironic and abstract, as is demonstrated this particular scene: "Billy
sniffed. His hot bed smelled like a mushroom cellar. He had had a wet dream
about Montana Wildhack" (Vonnegut, 134). Vonnegut appeared, perhaps more
than any other Modern writers, to be mentally unstable due to the rather spontaneous
descriptions and connections in his writing, but it was intended to appear
so. His tone is objective, and remains this way throughout the novel, cementing
his role as a narrator, but Vonnegut also manages to insert himself into the
story, at the beginning of the novel as well as in the midst of the story
itself: "That was I. That was me. That was the author of this book"
(Vonnegut, 125). In comparison, Catcher in the Rye is a completely different
novel. Salinger maintains a humorous tone throughout much of the novel, and
is considered to be one of the leaders in the development of "black humor"
- humor that has occasional elements of irresponsibility, cruelty, despair,
and insanity" (Miller). His tone is colloquial and rather casual, most
likely due to the fact that he used slang ("…she chewed it…,"
"helluva") and he addressed his reader personally: "The goddam
movies. They can ruin you. I'm not kidding" (Salinger, 104). Because
of the experimentation in writing styles that many Modern writers undertook,
a good amount of novels written in the post-war era is still popular today.
During the Modern period after World War II, stories such as those of Billy
Pilgrim and Holden Caulfield were commonplace. The breaking of traditional
guidelines allowed writers to become more and more abstract and experimental
when it came to expressing their ideas on paper, resulting in works of writing
that transcended the norm and took the imagination itself to a whole new level.
In the case of many Modern writers, the imagination ceased to be a simple
daydream but grew to become its own separate state of mind in which anything
could be conceived (Reuben). Writers began to take freedom of expression to
a level it had never experienced in America history before as they were no
longer obligated to stay within respectable parameters, and because of this,
the literary world now came to represent almost every level of human life,
from the lowliest degenerate to the highest official. Discrimination still
existed, of course, but now all writers were given a chance to get their work
out there. This new level of freedom of expression still exists today, thankfully,
giving the chance to anyone who wants to take it to get their voice heard.
The evolution of American literature throughout the years has been a truly
remarkable process. It has loyally followed the growth of our nation step
by step, serving to document the great waves of change which have swept our
nation in particular with great force and frequency. These changes have had
a great impact on the development of our country in every aspect, and these
impacts have ultimately trickled down the many tiers of society to influence
us, the average citizens. Nowhere is the influence of change more strongly
felt and noticed than in our minds and by our eyes and, ironically, nowhere
is our own potential for reform more understated. Because as much as society
has an impact on American writers everywhere, the works of writing produced
by them also serve to influence the rest of the population as well: a self-perpetuating
cycle of change. And as we today proclaim ourselves to be independent and
unique and removed from the rest of society, we must silently admit to ourselves
that we really are not; that proclamation in itself is the result of a new
set of ideologies sweeping the nation, just a small part of the infinite range
of changes that will hit once again, for no object, great or small, is invulnerable
to its surroundings.
