Modernism can be defined as the societal and literary transition from the classical and traditional ways to modern ideas. Modernism was an early twentieth-century movement which was characterized by painful traditional transformations. This movement was during a time when the society experienced destructive effects of World War I, Black Friday and the subsequent stock market crash, the Great Depression, and World War II that left many people disillusioned. It is a time when theorists challenged evolution, communism, traditional beliefs about humanity, human conscience, and government. In this perspective, modernist writers would expose the confusion and disillusionment through the evaluation of traditional beliefs and values and the failure of the American dream. In modernist literature, the end result is usually accompanied by painful experiences caused by the failure to achieve the dreams.
Dave Saunders, in Scott Fitzgerald’s “ The Man Who Was Almost A Man ,” is a character struggling with the transition from boyhood to manhood. From the modernist view, Dave’s situation is a case of the loss and uncertainty felt by someone in his life where he has the desire to achieve masculinity, power, control, authority, and independence. His struggle to achieve his desires does not bear fruit as he fails to achieve his objective and dream. According to Dave, by him possessing a gun, it would make him feel a man who is accorded respect as any other adult. “Dave felt he wasn’t a man without a gun.” After he acquires the gun, he achieves a sense of independence and masculinity. However, the misuse of the gun in killing Jenny, he demonstrates a total lack of control and immaturity. It is childish and unfortunate that Dave, just like any other boy, sneaks out with a gun and out of his irresponsibility; he kills the mule which was under his watch even as he worked in the field under the instruction of his boss. His possession of a gun was meant to make him be seen as a masculine and independent person; however, the end result is a demonstration of a failed struggle to achieve personal goals. After his irresponsible act, people around him would then confirm that he is truly a careless boy.
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The story also relays some aspect of a struggle to get out of bondage and slavery. Dave happens to be an African American boy who works for a white farm owner, Jim Hawkins. The author of the story highlights that the crowd that gathered after the killing of the mule was made of black and white. The people’s colors around Dave is a representation of racism and the fact that Dave mentions that with a gun he could kill a man, black or white, is a true manifestation of the racial differences that existed in the post-World War era. Even after admitting and confessing that he was the one who accidentally killed the mule, Jim Hawkins had to recover his lost fifty-dollar rated mule through having Dave work for him. This kind of payment illustrates further that Dave was not going to have the independence and freedom he had wished for a long time. He ends up disillusioned and disappointed. Generally, Dave’s life that is only surrounded by a farming landscape is a representation of a meaningless world and the emptiness of life. The whole story is set in a farming arena where Dave as the main character is either walking or working in the field.
“ Babylon Revisited ” is a short story authored in 1930 shortly after the 1929 stock market crash. Scott Fitzgerald, out of his personal experience, takes the reader through the struggles people go through as they try coming out of the old and embracing the modern life. The story is told of the painful experiences the society went through during and after the overwhelming effects of World War I, the subsequent Great Depression and the stock market crash. The author takes us through the past failures Charlie Wales made when he extravagantly lived drinking and partying without caring about his life afterward. Charlie’s story is a representation of how one’s past behavioral choices and lifestyles can impact his/her present or modern life.
Charlie’s past lifestyle led to the loss of his riches as well as his family. He is struggling to reconstruct after enduring the stock market crash and having had his wife die out in the snow for reason that she kissed another man while they partied. In the Roaring Twenties, Charlie spent his boom on a lavish lifestyle leading to a failed marriage. His daughter, Honoria, is under the care of his wife’s sister, Marion, who blames Charlie for the death that befell her sister. Charlie appears so disillusioned and confused because he believes, under Marion’s care, his daughter Honoria may be misled into hating him. He’s caught in the midst of proving his sobriety to Marion so as to have his daughter stay with him. However, his painful efforts to undergo a transformation from the past failures into new modern ways of living are thwarted by the presence of his old partying friends and the places he frequented during the Roaring Twenties. Since the events take place in the presence of his sister-in-law, Marion, Charlie loses the trust from her thus denying him the chance of going with his daughter to live with her in Prague. His modern disillusionment is as a result of a series of past mistakes, which continually haunt him that he finds difficult letting go. Charlie, presently, lives an alienated life full of disappointment, guilt, and absurdity.
