Upload
arwen
View
47
Download
0
Embed Size (px)
DESCRIPTION
1914 - 1946. Disillusion, Defiance, and Discontent. There are three central ideas in the American dream First there is admiration for America as a new Eden; a land of beauty, bounty, and unlimited promise - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
Citation preview
DISILLUSION, DEFIANCE, AND DISCONTENT
1914 - 1946
THE AMERICAN DREAM: PURSUIT OF A PROMISE
There are three central ideas in the American dream
First there is admiration for America as a new Eden; a land of beauty, bounty, and unlimited promise
The second element is optimism, justified by the ever-expanding opportunity and abundance that many people have come to expect of our great nation
Modernism …
Americans have always believed in progress – that life keeps getting better and that we are moving toward an era of prosperity, justice, and joy that always seems just around the corner
The third element in the American dream has been the importance and ultimate triumph of the individual – the independent, self-reliant person
Everything is possible for the person who places trust in his or her own powers and potential
AMERICAN DREAM
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND Years preceding World War I were
characterized by an overwhelming sense of optimism. Societal attitudes were optimistically influenced by the following:
Numerous technological advances Promise for the future And then World War I broke out in 1914
…
Modernism …
WAR IN EUROPE Allies - Britain, Belgium, France, Italy,
Serbia, Montenegro, Japan, and Russia; later Russia would drop out of the conflict and the United States would join
Central Powers – Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey
The machine gun was introduced, making it impossible for one side to launch a successful attack on its opponents’ trenches
Modernism: Historical Background …
President Woodrow Wilson wanted the US to remain neutral, but that proved impossible
1915 - A German submarine sank the Lusitania
More than 1,200 people lost their lives on board, including 128 Americans
Germany resumed unrestricted submarine warfare two years later; the US joined the Allied cause
Historical Influences on Literature …
Psychological Effects of the War
A number of famous American writers saw the war firsthand and learned of its horror
E. E. Cummings, Ernest Hemingway, and John Dos Passos served as ambulance drivers for the Red Cross
Hemingway later served in the Italian infantry and was seriously wounded
This experience served as the basis for his short story “In Another Country”
POSTWAR Two new intellectual trends or movements
became popular after World War I Marxism and psychoanalysis combine to
increase the pressure on traditional beliefs and values
In Russia during World War I, a Marxist-inspired Bolshevik Revolution had toppled and even murdered anointed ruler Czar Nicholas II
The socialistic beliefs of Karl Marx (1818 – 1883) that had powered the Russian Revolution in 1917 were in direct opposition to the American system of capitalism and free enterprise
The Musings of Sigmund Freud
In Vienna, there was another unsettling movement
Sigmund Freud (1856 – 1939), the founder of psychoanalysis, had opened the workings of the unconscious mind to scrutiny and called for a new understanding of human sexuality, and the role it plays in unconscious thoughts
Throughout America, there was a growing interest in this new field
SIGMUND FREUD
The Subconscious Controls Our Actions This created a resultant anxiety about
the amount of freedom an individual really had
If we as people truly believed our actions were influenced by our subconscious, and we coupled this belief with the theory that there was no control over our subconscious, then there seemed to be little room left for “free will”
Stream of Consciousness One literary result of this interest in the
psyche was the narrative technique called stream of consciousness
This style abandoned chronology and attempted to imitate the moment-by-moment flow of a character’s perceptions and memories
Norman Rockwell Captures the Spirit of America(born Feb. 3, 1894, New York, N.Y., U.S. — died Nov. 8, 1978, Stockbridge, Mass.)
PROSPERITY AND DEPRESSION The Great War ended in November
1918 The Constitution was amended to
prohibit the manufacture and sale of alcohol
Prohibition led to bootlegging, speakeasies, widespread law breaking, the creation of the original gangster, and sporadic warfare among competing gangs
Recording the Roaring Twenties, F. Scott Fitzgerald gave it its name the Jazz Age
Gangsterism How did prohibition lead to the
rise in gangsterism? People soon found ways of
getting round the new law. Speakeasies were soon set up in all of the big cities. these were illegal bars, which sold alcohol behind closed doors. It was almost impossible to close these down because they were opened in basements or the back rooms of restaurants and cafes. If bar owners could not get their hands on genuine alcoholic drinks, they could always buy moonshine or hooch, which was illegally made alcohol. Unfortunately this could be very dangerous. Several hundred people a year died from alcohol poisoning during the 1920s, mostly from the effects of moonshine which could be lethal.
More on Gansterism … The most common way of getting hold of illicit drink
was by bootlegging, which was smuggling alcohol into the USA from Canada, Mexico or the West Indies. An enormous amount of alcohol was smuggled into the USA from Canada. Some of it by people who simply rowed across to fetch it. none of these countries had prohibition so it was a relatively easy matter to bring alcohol across the long borders that the USA had with Canada and Mexico and the thousands of miles of coastline. William McCoy is said to have made $70,000,000 in four years smuggling whisky from Canada and the West Indies.
But the most important result of prohibition was that it made ordinary people into criminals. Most people liked a drink from time to time and this made the police very reluctant to enforce the law. They also became more open to bribes from otherwise law-abiding citizens. So began the system of bribery and corruption that spread all over the USA and reached the highest levels of society. Worse still, the supply of illegal alcohol fell into the hands of gangsters, who then bribed the police and justice system to allow them to carry on their business.
Gansgerism Cont’d … In Chicago the mayor, Big Bill Thompson, was
known to be an associate of the gangsters, who stepped in to supply the demand. The gangsters were able to make a fortune.
"It is estimated that by 1929, Capone's income from the various aspects of his business was $60,000,000 (illegal alcohol), $25,000,000 (gambling establishments), $10,000,000 (vice) and $10,000,000 from various other rackets. It is claimed that Capone was employing over 600 gangsters to protect this business from rival gangs."
Economic and Societal Factors … After a brief recession in 1920 and 1921, the
economy boomed New buildings rose, creating new downtowns
sections in many cities Radio and jazz arrived Movies became big business, and spectacular
movie places sprang up across the country Fads such as raccoon coats, flagpole sitting,
and the dance the Charleston began
New York gets its Cool on with Greenwich Village Writers flocked to Greenwich Village, in
New York City. Older buildings, barns, stables, and houses were converted to studios, nightclubs, theaters, and shops
Eugene O’Neill founded the Greenwich Village theatre where experimental dramas were performed
Thomas Wolfe taught English at New York University in the Village while writing his novel Look Homeward Angel
The poet Edna St. Vincent Millay became a symbol of the liberated woman of the era
Her bold, carefree public identity as a romantic, extravagant female Casanova made her a national celebrity while she was still in her twenties
Millay’s poems, as well as her public persona, assigned women social, intellectual, and romantic roles that society had previously reserved for men
EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY
Vroom Vroom Vroom … The auto industry was the engine of the
American economy in the 1920s Car sales grew rapidly during the decade The auto boom spurred growth in related
fields, such as steel and rubber One reason for the auto boom was a drop
in prices By 1924, the cost of a Model T had
decreased from $850 to $290
An average American, not just the wealthy, could afford to buy a car
Car prices fell because factories became more efficient
Henry Ford had introduced the assembly line in his factory in 1913
Before the assemble line, it took 14 hours to put together a Model T
In Ford’s new factory, workers could assemble a Model T in 93 minutes
The assembly line was a key idea in the expansion of manufacturing
It could apply to many industries, ensuring rapid manufacture of less expensive goods
Other companies copied Ford’s methods In 1927, General Motors passed Ford as
the top auto maker General Motors sold cars in a variety of
models and colors
In late October 1929, the stock market crashed, marking the beginning of the Great Depression.
By mid-1932, about 12 million people – one quarter of the work force – were out of work
In 1932 New York’s governor Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated incumbent president Herbert Hoover
GREAT DEPRESSION
Roosevelt initiated the New Deal, a package of major economic reforms, to strengthen the economy
Roosevelt’s New Deal Program helped some Americans find work, but it was World War II that really pushed the United States economically out of the Great Depression
This, with his leadership in World War II, earned him reelection in 1936, 1940, and again in 1944
The Marines Saving our Flag at Iwo Jima
WORLD WAR II Germans invaded Poland to touch off WWII America wanted to stay neutral; yet, when
the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941, it was no longer possible
The U.S. declared war on the Axis powers – Japan, Germany, and Italy
After years of fighting on two fronts, the Allies – the U.S., Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and France – defeated Nazi Germany
Japan surrendered three months later, after the U.S. had dropped the atomic bomb
Time’s Square – The Troops Return
WOMEN GET THE VOTE Carrie Chapman Catt, a former school
principal and reporter, spoke out forcefully for women’s suffrage.
She was a brilliant organizer, and her campaign succeeded as year by year more states in the West and Midwest gave women the vote
Gradually, more women called for an amendment to the Constitution
The suffragist leader Alice Paul and others met with President Wilson after he took office in 1913
He did not oppose women’s suffrage, but he did not support a constitutional amendment
Suffragists became disillusioned after numerous meetings with Wilson and began to picket the White House in January of 1917
By early 1918, President Wilson agreed to support the suffrage amendment
In 1919, Congress passed the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution giving women the right to vote
By August 1920, three fourths of the states had ratified it
The amendment doubled the number of eligible voters in the U.S.
LITERATURE OF THE PERIOD The devastation of World War I brought about
an end to the sense of optimism that had characterized the years immediately preceding the war
No longer trusting the ideas and values of the world out of which the war had developed, people sought to find new ideas that better suited twentieth-century life
The quest for new ideas occurred in the world of literature as well, and a major literary movement known as Modernism was born
Disillusionment was a major theme in the fiction of the time
Sinclair Lewis lashed out satirically at the narrow-mindedness of small town life in his immensely popular novel Main Street
In 1925, Theodore Dreiser produced a literary landmark with his prototype of the realistic novel An American Tragedy, the story of an ambitious but luckless man who takes a path that lead him not to the success he seeks, but to the execution chamber
SINCLAIR LEWIS
Ernest Hemingway
The most influential of all the post-WWI writers was Ernest Hemingway
Hemingway reduced the flamboyance of literary language to a minimum – to express the bare bones of the truth
Hemingway introduced a new kind of hero to American fiction, a character type that many readers embraced as a protagonist and a role model
ERNEST HEMINGWAY
MODERNISM Modernist experimented with a wide
variety of new approaches and techniques, producing a remarkably diverse body of literature
To reflect the fragmentation of the modern world, the Modernist constructed their works out of fragments, omitting the expositions, transitions, resolutions, and explanation used in traditional literature
Modernism and Imagism … In poetry, Modernist writers abandoned
traditional forms and meters in favor of free verse whose rhythms they improvised to suit individual poems
The themes of their works were usually implied rather than directly stated; this created a sense of uncertainty
Modernist writers and poets helped to earn American literature a place in the world’s esteem
Modernism emphasized bold experimentation in style and form, reflecting the fragmentation of society
It rejected traditional themes and subjects
It also rejected the ideal of a hero as infallible in favor of a hero who is flawed and disillusioned but shows “grace under pressure”
Poets began to explore the artistic life of Europe
With other writers, artists, and composers from all over the world, they absorbed the lessons of modernist painters like Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso, who were exploring new ways to see and represent reality
Poets sought to create poems that invited new ways of seeing and thinking
HENRI MATISSE
PABLO PICASSO
PABLO PICASSO
Symbolism and Imagism Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot used the
suggestive techniques of symbolism to fashion a new modernist poetry
Pound also spearheaded a related poetic movement called Imagism
William Carolos Williams, Marianne Moore, E. E. Cummings, and Wallace Stevens all wrote in this Imagist style
EZRA POUND E. E. CUMMINGS
IMAGISM The Modernist movement was ushered in
by a poetic movement known as Imagism This movement lasted from 1909 to 1917 The Imagists rebelled against the
sentimentality of nineteenth-century poetry Their models came from Greek and Roman
classics, Chinese and Japanese poetry, and the free verse of the French poets
Some of the Imagism were H.D. (Hilda Doolittle), Ezra Pound, E. E. Cummings and William Carlos Williams
EXPATRIATES Postwar disenchantment led a number of
American writers to become expatriates, or exiles
Many went to Paris, including Gertrude Stein, Sherwood Anderson, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Ernest Hemingway
Ezra Pound spent time in England, France, and Italy
T. S. Eliot went to England
GERTRUDE STEIN F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
NEW APPROACHES During the years between the two
world wars, writers explored new literary territories
Writers began using the stream-of-consciousness technique
In 1922, James Joyce published Ulysses using these technique
William Faulkner, Katherine Anne Porter, and John Dos Passos also used this technique
Poets also stretch the old boundaries E. E. Cummings's poems attracted special
attention because of their wordplay, unique, typography, and special punctuation
William Carlos Williams sought meaning in American sights and sounds and used informal, conversational speech
Wallace Stevens wrote a more intellectual and self-consciously elegant poetry
WRITERS OF INTERNATIONAL RENOWN The Nobel Prize for Literature was
established in 1901 with funds bequeathed by Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite
In 1930, Sinclair Lewis was the first American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature won the award for his novel, Main Street
This award was the first of many for American writers
NOBEL PRIZE FOR LITERATURE
Other Nobel Prize Winners In 1936, the prize went to Eugene
O’Neil; O’Neil was ranked by the critics as America’s greatest playwright
He wrote plays such as Desire Under the Elms, The Iceman Cometh, and Long Day’s Journey Into Night
In 1938, Pearl S. Buck won the Nobel Prize
The Good Earth is considered her finest work
Nobel Prize Cont’d T. S. Eliot won the prize in 1948 William Faulkner won the Nobel Prize
the following year in 1949 Later Ernest Hemingway and John
Steinbeck also won the Nobel Prize for Literature
Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms influenced a generation of young writers
Much of his work focuses on WWI and its aftermath
Many of Steinbeck’s works depict the Depression, especially as it affected migrant workers and dust-bowl farmers
Steinbeck’s most memorable novels are Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath
JOHN STEINBECK
POETRY IN NEW ENGLAND AND THE MIDWEST
Poet Edwin Arlington Robinson from Maine represented Americans whose fates were manifestations of their characters in his poetry
Robert Frost was perhaps the greatest voice in New England
Frost’s independence was grounded in his ability to handle ordinary New England speech and in his surprising skill at taking the most conventional poetic forms and giving them a twist all his own
ROBERT FROST
At the same time, poets of the Midwest brought the American heartland to life in slightly more adventuresome verse forms
They used rougher stanzas and looser lines Best known of these poets is Edgar Lee Masters
who assembled a sort of town biography in his Spoon River Anthology
Masters took the lid off sentimentalized small-town life and allowed the dead to speak their own shocking litanies of greed, frustrations, and spiritual poverty in this work
HARLEM RENAISSANCE A group of black poets focused directly
on the unique contributions of African Americans
Foremost among these poets was James Weldon Johnson, Claude McKay, Langston Hughes, and Countee Cullen
These poets brought literary distinction to the broad movement of artists known as the Harlem Renaissance
The geographical center of the movement was Harlem, in northern Manhattan
Its spiritual center was a place in the consciousness of African Americans
African American poetry and music from New Orleans, Memphis, and Chicago became part of the Jazz Age
In March 1924, The Harlem Renaissance was publicly recognized
The Harlem phenomenon continued through the 1920s and into the 1930s
The writers of this renaissance belonged to no single school of literature, but they did form a coherent group
They saw themselves as part of a new and exciting movement
They opened the door for African American writers who would follow them
POETIC VOICES OF THE WEST AND SOUTH The most distinctive poetic voice from
the West was that of Robinson Jeffers who carved out an isolated and almost hermitlike existence in a California town by the Pacific shore
Jeffers steered a wavering course between convention and experiment
He worked in meter and rhyme, but more often he wrote in long lines of free verse
He became widely known less for his craftsmanship than for his unorthodox attitudes toward progress, religion, and the nature of humanity
Jeffers took a dim view of democracy and the rise of the common man
After his death, his poems became an inspiration to the Beats and other West Coast literary groups in the 1960s
Robinson Jeffers
The South offered their voice in John Crowe Ransom
Ransom stood for wit, gentility, subtle, intellect, and the manners of an earlier century
Readers found him to have a gentle nature and a passionate concern for the beauty and elegance of the English language
JOHN CROWE RANSOM
THE AMERICAN DREAM REVISITED Belief in self-reliance persisted as the old idea
of America as Eden American modernist writers both echoed and
challenged the American dream They constituted a broader, more resonant
voice than ever before resulting in a second American renaissance
With all the changes, however, writers continued to ask fundamental questions about the meaning and purpose of human existence
A typical depiction of the 1920s…