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Paragraphs & Essay Question 1 Realism is the way of writing in which the authors reflect the real, actual way of life. In contrast to realism, postmodernism is mostly a reaction against Enlightenment ideas and reaction to modernism, rejecting the boundaries between high and low forms of art, rejecting rigid genre distinctions, and focusing on irony, parody, pastiche, and bricolage. The Crying Lot of 49 by Pynchon, Kurt Vonneguts novel, Breakfast of Champions are examples of postmodernism; while Honore de Balzac (French writer), Henry Adams are realist writers. Question 2 Modernism in literature is the movement that gained the peak of popularity in Europe during 1900 - 1920 s. Modernism was mostly caused by the desire to break down traditions, established political, religious and social views and was based on a sense of lost community and civilization. The main characteristics of the movement are as follows: a sense of alienation, disillusionment, frustration, spiritual loneliness, breakdown of social and cultural norms, separation of senses and meanings from the context, rejection of the outdated social system and the history, the objection of the religious and traditional thoughts and moralities, the effects of World War I and II on humanity, substitution of mythical past, etc.
Major English and American authors of that period are: James Joyce (Ulysses), Ford Madox Ford (The Good Soldier), Virginia Woolf (To the Lighthouse), Stevie Smith (Novel on Yellow Paper), T. S. Eliot (The Wasteland) (American Literature), Ernest Hemingway (The Sun Also Rises), F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby), etc.
Question 3 During the period between the World Wars the American nation has undergone drastic changes. The literary prose in the decades between the World Wars was no exception to the rule, and changes in literature (women movement, the Harlem Renaissance, etc. ) paralleled other social and cultural changes. Between the two World Wars the United States became a modern nation. The literary movements during that period reflected these drastic transformations as the authors wanted to understand new responses to the beginning of modernity. Industrialization, urbanization and immigration affected U. S.
demographics of the 1920 s (Dumenil). Other social and economic changes, such as forbidding the sale, manufacture and exchange of alcohol led to the Gangster phenomenon of the 1920 s that was reflected in American literature of that period. Women began to advocate their rights and equality with women and only few writers, (such as Ernest Hemingway and Ezra Pound still considered that writing was a strictly masculine concept). Soon after the Great Migration out of the South, African Americans were inspired by new changes and began to take advantage of new opportunities. They contributed a lot to the U.
S. modernist movement, and during the well-known Harlem Renaissance such writers like Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Huge gained popularity as they reflected the realities of black political and cultural life in their works (Perkins and Perkins). Women movements gave birth to women writers, contributing to the U. S.
literature. Women writers such as Dorothy Parker, Nella Larsen, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Amy Lowell reflected the experiences and the thoughts of women in their literary works. In addition, many women writers also acted as public figures and were expressing their opinions concerning such public issues like labor, race and womens issues. In conclusion it can be said that similar to any other literary period, the period between two World Wars found reflection in American literature, as new ideas and new changes in political, social and cultural life of America reshaped American literature.
Works Cited American Literature. 18 August 2009 < web >. Dumenil, Lynn. The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920 s. New York: Hill and Wang, 1995. Perkins, G.
and B. Perkins. The American Tradition in Literature. McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages, 2008.
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Research essay sample on Social And Cultural Ernest Hemingway
