CHAPTER ONE

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

Every literary period in history has its peculiar ideologies and these influence writers. 19th century American fiction could not have been as that of the 20th century in the literary context. Unlike the Victorian writers that controlled writing in the nineteenth century, the Lost Generation Writers that emerged from World War 1 as part of modernist writers reached their climax in the 1920s.They gained grounds in the literary works they produced, deviated from the nineteenth century Victorian literature which readers had already been familiar with. This was through their introduction of new forms of writing arising from their experiences.

It is from this perspective that this work sets out to examine the Lost Generation and Modernism as architect (builder) of a new literary landscape which is that of twentieth century, particularly that of the post-World War I American scenery. The study examines the degree to which the two writers under study ushered in change in the literature of the twentieth century particularly post world war one American literature of the 1920s.

Attention here is given to prose (fiction), given that the history of American novel were hardly written using themes, style and forms brought in by the modernist writers. Modernism had tremendous impact on literature evident in prose work of the 1920s and 1930s. This is apparent in terms of taboo thematic concerns, style and the truncated characters often portrayed in works by writers like Hemingway and Faulkner in their efforts to depict what Gertrude Stein calls “The Lost Generation”. Even if the subjects of the writers of this period made the generation and its writers to be termed lost, the style in which these subjects are presented, though new, has stood the test of time, timelessly affecting generations of writers who came after Modernist writers.

This gives the Lost Generation credit and makes it not to be as absolutely lost as assumed. In a bid to describe American post war experience in prose, writers like Hemingway and Faulkner would point out how they employed unconventional, experimental and revolutionary model of writing to bring forth taboo Themes and to showcase traumatized character as is the case with novels under study.  This is what makes writers modernist and is very glaring in literature.

The Lost Generation and Modernist Writers in a bid to make their literature more realistic tend to reproduce the lives and experiences in their works through fictional characters, modifications in setting and some events recreated to  make the work fictional and this explains why the researcher in one of the chapter will analyze the two novels in  this study as autobiographical in nature which shows that Faulkner and Hemingway do not just narrate American experience from a distance given that they also lived it. Thus, the work also shows that history cannot be separated from literature given that everything in this work is within the historical context.

The Lost Generation though very pronounced and outstanding in the Post-World War 1 period, remains part of Modernism which started in the later part of the nineteen century and became popular in the twentieth century especially in the 1920s. Writers like Hemingway and Faulkner under study all fell the pangs brought by world War One.

The disillusionment caused by this war brought changes in mankind’s perception and understanding of life in almost every aspect; literature, arts, business, religion amongst others. Writers like Hemingway and Faulkner experienced the war directly given that they  participated in it and got injured in one way or the other and this influenced their perception of the world in general and  literature in  particular. Thus, the revolutionary style, taboo themes and innovative character portrayal adopted in their works are due to the post war realities that affected them and this clearly paints a picture of life in the American society.

As authors usually represent their life experiences, so do these American novelist; Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner portrayed theirs in The sun also rises and The sound and the Fury respectively. Both novelist show in similar ways modern men and women uprooted in the industrialized and mechanized 1920s American society.

The authors both represent the traumatic experience that marked post-war 1 America as well as their lives as artists. They both captured the disillusionment and despair of post war 1 American society as well as the moral failure of the society obsessed with wealth. These characters used disillusioned characters in their novels under study to make general statements that address the contemporary America society of their time. While Faulkner writes from the perspective of Stream of consciousness techniques, Hemingway writes from the perspective of the “Lost Generation“ although, both terms best describe the post-world war 1 American lifestyle.

One of the things that makes these two novelists similar to all human beings is the fact that man has always been preoccupied with achievements of wealth, happiness and love irrespective of their race, gender, religion, and social class. Probably, this has accounted for the efforts generally made by William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway’s characters; these strives to attain acceptable social positions and they do so by trying to acquire wealth at all cost in other to ease their existence.

These novelists however lived during a period in American history which was characterized by the Great War better known as WW1, the fights for civil rights of the blacks amongst other events. Many Americans who witnessed this Great War became disillusioned and lost hope for the future. The war devastated Europe, wiping away empires and long-standing governments Similarly, its brutal trench warfare and machine-driven killing made it clear to its participants that the long-standing ideal of honor, courage, and stoicism were hallow and meaningless, as were the national identities that drove the countries in Europe to war in the first place. In fact, the war changed everyone who experienced it and those who came out of age during the period became known as the “lost Generation. “

The term “Lost Generation“ was coined and first used by Gertrude Stein during a conversation with Ernest Hemingway; “you are all a lost generation, `to refer to American writers who emerged from the war (Hemingway 1964; 34).

Many who came under the “Lost Generation“ were creative writers, artists and creative thinkers including Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner among others. Many of these people hoped to experience their own bohemian and artistic being in Paris and other major towns in Europe. Even though the term first came to apply only to those who had just come out of the war, the term gradually became all American expatriates and in particular those with artistic and literary preference.

Thus, the term “Lost Generation“ describes people alive during the 1920s who witnessed the first hand and devastation of WW1.The people felt disillusioned and despaired with what they had perceived as corruption, hypocrisy, and provincialism of post-war 1 American culture and as such, instead of working hard for a shot at the American dream, the “Lost Generation“ valued partying and having fun.

To fit into this cultural ideal, one had to be rich enough to host big parties with high level of alcohol consumption but carefree and lazy enough to make someone wonder how they even obtained their wealth which is the image Hemingway projects with bars and parties in The sun also rises.

However, to understand more about the above changes, we shall give a brief history of how American literature has evolved over the years.

Statement of the Research Problem

The underlying problem in this research endeavor is that although Post World War I American prose fiction, specifically that of the 1920s, deviated from that of the pre-war period (19th century Victorian prose friction),  the deviation led to the  breakaway from previous arts, evident at the level of thematic concerns, style, characterization and forms brought out by modernist writers in which the Lost Generation writers incorporated, tends to create a new art which depicts society and writer’s place  in it as lost. Consequently, this study questions the notion of “lost” with regards to the explicit literature produced by modernist and Lost Generation Writers like Hemingway and Faulkner.

Research Questions

The following questions will act as a guide to this research work.

1. How does fiction produced in the 20th century differ from that produced in the nineteenth century in terms of quality of writing and its depiction of reality,
2. To what extent do Hemingway and Faulkner succeed in representing life experiences in the novels under study?

Hypothesis

This study is based on the hypothetical contention that the literature produced by the Lost Generation writers in particular and modernist writers in general, depicts a concrete portrayal of post-world war I. Consequently, the generation is not as its name denotes.

Objective of study

This work has objectives to investigate the notions and impacts of Modernism in 20th-century American fiction and shows modernist as designers of a new arts. The study focuses on two novels by two different authors and clearly establishes the shift from old virtues to new ones which makes writers of this movement be termed lost.

The study also shows that modernist writers in their endeavours to be different and to show that they themselves are part of the new literature they instigate, reproduce their lives and experiences in their works in which they are directly or indirectly affected by traumatic war experiences that marked the climax of this shift in aesthetics.

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