Short Story:Modernism

(Hemingway, Faulkner, etc.)

• MODERNISM– offbranch of Realism and Naturalism, with similar foci– further reflects sense of loss, disillusionment, despair;

sense of historical discontinuity– Sees world as not only indifferent, but fractured– “absurd” view of life: life inherently meaningless but

we cannot not seek/impose meaning– Moves beyond scientific determinism to subjectivity of

experience:• Freud & Jung: influence of the subconscious, dreams,

myths– Jung’s “collective unconscious”: archetypes & themes

shared by many cultures across globe– Influences Surrealism (sur-real = what lies under the “real”

conscious world; the illogical and contradictory beneath the logical; language & logic reach their limit but can still create [unconventional] meaning)

• (ambivalent) Influences on Modernism– TECHNOLOGY

• fast travel (automobiles, airplanes) shrinks world• 1WW & 2WW mass technologies of death/destruction (What

value/meaning human life if thousands can be killed in moments? What sense of “honor”? How “God” possible?)

– CONSUMERISM• massive factory production & large-scale duplication (what

value “art” if can be reproduced and robbed of singular specialness?); fascination w/ new “industrial landscape”

• influence of advertisement (reduces human talent & art to sales-pitch; reduces humans to consumers of goods)

• 1929 U.S. Stock Market Crash revealed danger of speculation (thousands of people robbed of investments by few’s actions)

– MASS ENTERTAINMENT• immediacy of film, newsreels, radio vs. their dumbing-down of

the world audience

– PHILOSOPHY & PSYCHOANALYSIS (q.v.)

• Modernist angst (not just for teens any more!)

– Sense of loss, disillusionment, despair

• world morally bankrupt after 1WW, moreso after 2WW

• Old morals & ideals empty in light of large-scale human death & destruction

• Loss of “innocence” = loss of order: universe increasingly random, humans increasingly pawns

• Sees previous art forms & philosophies as tools of powerful socio-political class & ruling groups (who eventually dragged world into war—twice!)

• Modernist angst (not just for teens any more!)– “History” discontinuous

• Any sense of continuity an illusion: continuity itself illusion that ruling classes impose on population to legitimate themselves

• “History” an illusion/construct• (In lit: history as fluid, mercurial, moved by massive multiple

forces)

– Time broken, fragmented, experienced subjectively• Influence of Einstein (General Theory of Relativity 1915/16)• (In lit: “reading time” reflects experience of “story time”) • (In lit: plot chronology often fractured, associational)

– World broken/fragmented• If experience is itself fractured, then so is not only our

knowledge of “the world” but also the world itself– “broken” in both literal and figurative senses (“wounded,” etc.)– “healing” / “repairing” nigh impossible, but we must try

Which all leads to . . .

• Modernist angst (not just for teens any more!)– Absurdity

• Futile search for meaning in a universe where meaning comes only from humans themselves—but searching for meaning makes us human

• Any meaning created by humans is already flawed, and can be contradicted with a law, bullet, bomb, social organization, etc: – ALL HUMAN MEANING INDIVIDUAL & SUBJECTIVE– No universal “meaning” or “morality” possible (after Stock

Market Crash, 1WW battlefields, Auschwitz, Hiroshima, etc.)

• Absurd irony of human life: we know search for meaning futile, but we cannot not search for it– Love, hate, pleasure, suffering, indifference, caring = all effects of

humanity’s desperate, grasping search for meaning

• Responsibility & fault for human pleasure or suffering rests totally with humans themselves; ULTIMATE MORAL RESPONSIBILITY LIES WITH US (can’t blame “God”; pointless to blame universe, nature, weather; blaming other humans = self-blame; most luck is shitty)

• Modernist angst (not just for teens any more!)– Humans experience alienation• Individual human experience so subjective that

cannot adequately be communicated– humans cannot actually “know” or “relate to” each other

(everyone is an Other to everyone else)

• Individuals/characters alienated from each other– narrators distant from plot events they describe– multiple narrators/POVs

• Individuals/characters alienated from selves– modern life fragments us and makes us unknowable to

ourselves (“Why do I do this??”)

• “sensationalism”: scenes of meaningless sex/drinking/conversation, unfulfilling relationships, petty cruelty & victimization,– small, redemptive moments of human caring possible, but

few

• Modernism writes in different styles:– Emphasis on experimental/new styles, often

counterlogical and rejecting traditional style & form

– heavily subjective (since objectivity impossible)• emphasizes the specificity of this character in this situation in

this place/situation at this time under these circumstances

– echoes & reworks myths, mythic themes & imagery• Since modern world hopeless & corrupt, seeks older/originary

myths & reworks their material

– if Naturalism portrays experience as we experience it (through Impressionism), Modernism represents how we intellectually respond to and think about what we experience • reflects subjective working of human mind on page, shows life

as result of alienated humans bumbling through random world

• Minimalism (ex. Hemingway, etc.)

– Sharp outlines, concentrated diction (almost telegrammatic)– Records what eye sees, tells that events happen, but leaves

interpretation to reader while recording only characters’ reactions to what they see and experience, without always explaining all the emotional steps (minimal exposition)

– Few expositional details: readers dumped into situations without explanation or context, expected to catch up & work it out from observing characters’ speech & actions

• “Stream-of-consciousness” (ex. Faulkner, Stein, Barnes, etc.)

– Portrays subjective & associative “logic” of human mind• Ideas link not by cause-effect but by emotional relation to each

other

– No formal “artificial” divisions/organization to human thought, so none on page

– “interior monologue” : humans “speak” to selves in heads in constant stream of chatter, so do characters & narrators