Modernism

The idea’s that surrounded the Modernism evolution of literature, music, and arts in the American culture affected a very wide range of people. At this time America’s immigration of large populaces of many differently nationalities was at a very high rate. Many of who, just arriving in America had little or no wealth, which I think helped expand on the growing reality that America was not a place where everyone could live well in the American standards. This also has ties to second world war that occurred during the era. The devastating loss of a large percentage of any generation is enough to arouse discontent in the heart of many friends, family members, and loved ones into being disenchanted with the idea that America’s society was not out of reach to the effects of the happenings of Europe and the wars they occurred there. Such a strong example of the happenings in other parts of the war and the profound impact they can make on our semi-isolated position. The fact that it caused a nation as a whole to step back and think about how realistic the American dream was or what one might have to go through to obtain it was enough to disenchant many people under the "illusion." I hope to read a style of literature that reflects on people of a society suspending them within it but seeing it as some how flawed and possibly reclusive. The idea of not every American has a fair chance to the possibility of success in the nation where the pursuit of happiness is in many ways the advertisement logo of the country. This is why I wanted to read the disillusionment segment of the Modernism era.

In the story of Soldier’s Home by Earnest Hemmingway Harold Krebs has just returned from Germany, serving in last three years of the war. He joined the Marines in 1917. He served the last three years of the war. He was not sent as back as early as the draftees were and so was not welcomed by the same cheer and warmth that many of these called upon heroes had been. He returned and led a life of a calm reclusion filled with reading and enjoying his days watching pretty girls and reflecting on the drama that ensues with them. He had gone to college prior to the war and had not pursued a career after his return home. He spent most of the day when not reading playing pool in the local pool hall. He also practiced clarinet. He was very much a picture perfect pitch for the American dream, but he seemed dispatched to the culture some how.

His father sold real estate and provided for this mother and children. Harold had a younger sister named Helen. His whole family showed great amounts of support and love. His father who had never let Harold use his car prior to the war even told Harold through his mother that he could drive it any night he wanted. All of these signs still could not seem to get through the phase the Harold seemed to be behind. He felt no sense of love in this aspect of one of the core values of the American dream, family. He was left at the end of the story in a fork in the road of his life. He seemingly could not break off into any of the paths that life could have presented to him.

I think Harold Krebs’s strong sentiments of disillusionment where due to his past with his service in the war. It was noted often, such as; "A distaste for everything that had happened to him in the war set in because of the lies he had told." that he did not talk about the war unless at the pool hall. It was strange to see that he did find a place in the society of America that he did feel somewhat comfortable. It also only makes his separation from the culture even more felt in the story because it seems he would try to fit in but still had a hard time. His difficulties of his pursuing the females of his town came from the different impact the war had on them. Most of the young girls his age had been hardly affected by the war and it had been only a topic of conversation in its duration.

The illusion Krebs had once had portrayed in his mind of the American way of life had been wiped clean from whatever canvas it had been painted on. His loving family, prospective life options, and bachelordom would have been many American’s favorite time to look back on. For someone like Krebs’s I think he would have not seen much value in separating the eras of one’s life but more of a sense in the value of the person over their entirety. The idea of not getting a chance to lead the normal life of getting an education and directly pursuing in a career might off set any person on their path in life. Many Americans found their dreams that life might bring to them suddenly brought into a much wider world that could still harm their happiness and sense of balance. He reflected on the absence of a happiness in a environment one would feel in this passage, "All of the times that had been able to make him feel cool and clear inside himself when he thought of them; the times so long back when he had done the one thing, the only thing for a man to do, easily and naturally, when he might have done something else, now lost their cool, valuable quality and then were lost themselves."


In the poem "Richard Corey," I feel the strongest aspect of the modernism movement touched on was the separation of wealth. In this instance it was a burden on it’s wielder and caused him grief and guilt. He had what the poor didn’t and he was aware of it and became unsatisfied with life. He killed himself because of this. This phrase of the poem lets a perspective of Richard and his life style through. "And he was always quietly arrayed, 5 and he was always human when he talked; but still he fluttered pulses when he said, "Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked."


The poem "A Dream Deferred" is reflecting on the many ways the disillusionment felt could alter some one’s life. Could it kill the creative soul of the individual? Would it bring them to find fortunes in new places? Would it create hard times for people? Could it even awaken them to find out what their real dream is? These are just a few ways the poem hints at people’s lives being altered by the era’s realist taking on life.


The poem "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" I felt was a very reflective side of the young age of the American nation. This reflections strongly supports my ideas, "I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins." It was still early in its settling into the society it would melt together from all the different people who wanted to live freely. The people who had it taken from them, and what it had been before anyone was there to live upon it. It brought forth a sense of respect for the earth and what it provided for people.


Countee Cullen’s poem "Incident" is an emphasis on how incidents that occur around us are most remembered when the memory of the event is a bad one. He remembers spending a fall in Baltimore when he was eight. A teasing boy his age called him the n-word. He states that he was there for month but remembers little other than the occasion of being picked on for his race. This reflects greatly upon the Harlem renaissance and how a community of people that had certainly never been given the full rights to the American dream were emerging in culture as more equal but still unfairly treated citizens. He reflects upon his bitterness over the time in this phrase from his poem, "I saw the whole of Baltimore from May until December; of all the things that happened there that's all that I remember."


In Robert Frost’s poem "The Mending Wall" two neighbors and their yearly rebuilding of the stone wall between their two respective properties is reflected upon in the idea of disillusionment. "SOMETHING there is that doesn’t love a wall, That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it, And spills the upper boulders in the sun; and makes gaps even two can pass abreast." The wall is built in the spring and during the winter and other seasons slowly falls in many places. The neighbors have differing ideas on the yearly reconstruction of the wall. One neighbor is under the illusion that the wall is not needed and that both parties know their land and needn’t spend such a long time rebuilding their dividing wall. The other sees the rebuilding the wall as a reflection on his relationship with his land and his neighbor as a good thing and wants to continue the process.