Modernism
1900 to the Present
The Era of Change: Putting the
World into Question
"We are sharply cut off from our
predecessors. A shift in the scale...has
shaken from the fabric from top to bottom,
alienated us from the past and made us
perhaps too vividly conscious of the
present. Every day we find ourselves
doing, saying, or thinking things that
would have been impossible to our
fathers." --Virginia Woolf
The Era of Change: Putting the
World into Question
Important Historical Dates and Events:
The Great War (1914-1918)
Einstein and Modern Science (1919)
European Stock Market Crash (1929)
The Atomic Bomb (1945)
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1955)
Vietnam and Communism (1975)
Nelson Mandela (1994)
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The Era of Change: Fighting
against the Victorian Era
Social Changes
Karl Marx introduced the idea of
socialism that called for more equality
among people-doing away with private
property and working for self
Social Darwinism: On the other side of
the coin, there was the idea of the survival
of the fittest in modern society
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The Era of Change: Fighting
against the Victorian Era
Religion:
Darwinism: The theory of evolution put
into question the great dependence many
British had on the bible and its teachings
Rationalism: Seeing the Bible as a book to
interpret vs. deliberate understanding
Secularism: separation between church
and state becoming greater
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The Era of Change: Fighting
against the Victorian Era
Psychological Changes:
Sigmund Freud: Interpretation of
Dreams--many of our actions are done
unconsciously and are irrationally driven
Created stark contrast from modest
teachings of Victorians
Id, Ego, and Superego
Oedipus Complex?
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World War I and the Death of
Romanticism
• The first Great War sparked a feeling of
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pride within British fighters, continuing
in the path of idealism and patriotism
With the great deaths and brutal
conditions of this war, this excitement
quickly turned to disillusionment
World War II and
Communism: Questioning
Authority
World War II
Hitler and the Rise of Dictatorships
The Atomic Bomb
Japanese Internment Camps
How might these actions influence citizens
to begin to question the established social
norms and break from previous ways?
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World War II and
Communism: Questioning
Authority
Communism
What is Communism?
Smurfs as Communists
What was the Red Scare? (Part 1 and 2)
Era of Mass Hysteria
How does this connect to the idea of
modernism and questioning the norms of
authority?
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What does Art look like?
Social Questioning Entering
into the World of Art
What does Creative Writing look like?
Attack on Form/Structure-free verse,
intentional shifts, play on form
Stream of Consciousness Writing
Rise of the Minority Voice-African
Americans, women, and other voices of
dissent
Use of Satire
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Telephone Conversation by
Wole Soyinka
• Soyinka was born in Nigeria in 1934
• Born into an upper class family that still
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had ties to African tribe of Yorubawalking within two different identities
Imprisoned during Nigeria's first civil war
in 1960's for meeting with minority
leaders
"Telephone Conversation"
What ideas does
the image of these
phone booths
invoke?