As you read through Stephen Crane and Ernest Hemingway (and the one poem from Robinson!) this week, I want you to think about the concept of the difficulty of living. This isn’t a unique concept, but it was definitely something writers explored in the Modern era. I’ll explain:
Modernists contend with the notion that people are not only able to succeed in the world but thrive. This is a Romantic idea; the Modernists reject it on the grounds that the world (or society, or just people) works against the individual. Rather than feeling empowered or emboldened by facing down the entire world, the Modern affect is to shrivel and wither. Those who strive to succeed are doing so alone, and when they fail, no one is there to pick them up. (We see this in Death of a Salesman as well.)
So taking the poetry and the novel chapter for this week, I want you to consider how people are “broken” (and you are free to define “broken” in your own terms), and how people manage to live in a world that seems set to break them. What’s wrong with us? Why did the Modernists feel so pessimistic about existence? Is happiness possible?
(And what does all of this have to do with war?)
Pick some passages from this week’s texts and compare them (meaning you’ll want more than one) to see what you can draw out. What makes these authors different than their predecessors? What would they have to say about some of our other core issues like religion, race, discrimination, division, or the development of the American narrative?
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