MODERNISM & ERNEST
HEMINGWAY
Events and trends that
helped shape Modernism
History that led to Modernism
• World War I 1914-1918
• First “modern” war
• Employed new artillery firepower (machine guns,
Howitzers shells, tanks, airplane bombings, and gas)
• Approximately 17 million total deaths, 20 million wounded,
and many soldiers returning home with shell shock
Results of WWI
• Mass destruction led to feelings of
disillusionment about the moral
improvement and progress of human
society.
Sigmund Freud
• The invention of psychoanalysis: actions
can be explained by unconscious forces
Albert Einstein
• The theory of relativity: questions an ordered and
stable universe (not everything is fixed and
constant)
General facts of Modernism
• An explosion of artistic movements that rejected realism,
•
•
•
•
which no longer reflected the new world
Peaked between 1900-1940 in Europe; 1914-1945 in
America
Emphasized formalism (how well wrought and stylized the
work is), autonomy of art, originality/newness
A discontinuity of time (time as discontinuous,
overlapping, non-chronological in the way we experience
it; a shift from linear time to “moment time”
More emphasis on individual psychology and subjective
experience. Concentrate on moments, episodes, or
epiphanies.
Modernist writing: plot
• From Abrams A Glossary of Literary Terms: modernists
“break up the narrative continuity”
• In other words, there is a departure from linear plots with
climactic turning points and clear resolutions
• Instead modernists use discontinuous fragments,
“moment time”, a-chronological leaps in time, multiple
plots, and open unresolved endings
Modernist writing: character
• From Abrams A glossary of literary Terms “depart from
standard ways of representing characters”
• Or, a disappearance of character summary, of discrete,
well-defined characters (think of Dickens)
• Instead, the representation of the self as diverse,
contradictory, ambiguous
Modernist writing: style
• From Abrams A Glossary of Literary Terms: modernists
“violate the traditional syntax and coherence of narrative
language”
• Modernists use “stream of consciousness” (tracing non-
linear thought processes), moving by the “logic of the
unconscious”; imagistic rather than logical connections.
Modernist writing: point of view
• From Abrams A Glossary of Literary Terms: POV thematically represents an ‘immense
panorama of futility and anarchy”
• Modernists show a rejection of the single, authoritative, omniscient point of view,
instead following:
• A narrative focused instead through the consciousness of one character whose point of
view is limited
• Or through several characters who establish relative, multiple points of view
• Or through several simultaneously-held positions maintained by the one character
• Point of view thematically represents an overwhelming sense of uselessness or
ineffectiveness toward life, and social confusion and disorder. (see quote above)
Hemingway’s Modernist traits
• As you read, you will notice these characteristics
in The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, &
Short Stories
Subjectivity/experience
• “inner reality” over objective experience
• Emphasized in modernism with use of limited omniscient
or first person narrator whose prejudices or p.o.v. shapes
the story.
Elliptical plot
• Traditional plot elements (beginnings, climax,
resolution) often are deleted or obscured in
modernism
Nada concept
• “Nothing” is out there for you; universe is
indifferent and has no purpose, meaning, or
order
Hemingway Hero
• Man for whom it is a point of honor to
suffer with grace and dignity; he plays
the game well, while sensing that
defeat is inevitable
A man’s man
• Involved in a great deal of drinking, moved from
one love affair to another, participated in wild
game hunting, enjoyed bullfights, and was
involved in all of the so-called “manly’ activities,
which the typical American male did not
participate in
Hemingway’s Heroic Code
• Confront “nada” with dignity (true moral integrity defined by oneself,
not society)
• Show “grace under pressure”
• Accept death as unavoidable, but confront it on his own terms
• Be a man of action, but do not talk about his actions
• Detest mediocrity
• Be devoted to a smaller, intimate group of men who are similar to
himself
Anti-Hero
• Blind to reality of “nada,” lives by illusion and false values,
and impulses
• Can be either stupid, idealistic/deluded, or self-centered
and self-destructive
The Lost Generation
• Term applied to the generation of young Americans who
lived as writers and poets in Paris after WWI (expatriates)
• Many had served in combat; no longer believed in values
such as glory, honor, or patriotism
• Were not interested in politics and many left America to
avoid dealing with the increasingly anti-intellectual,
conservative tide
Bohemian Lifestyle
• Drank too much because it was illegal to
drink in the U.S. during Prohibition
New Woman
• Bobbed hair, shorter skirts, flat is faddish (as opposed to
the buxom, corseted Victorian female)
• First generation of American women to drink and smoke
publicly, and for whom divorce was a reasonable solution
to a bad marriage (Lady Brett Ashley in The Sun Also
Rises)