Twentieth century saw the drastic reshaping of the landscape of art. The United States of America can be argued to be the land where this process began, as the most important prose writters, such as Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, and also most important poets, such as T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound, were born there – even though many of them have subsequently moved to Europe, some of them temporarily, like Hemingway, and some of them permanently, like T.S. Eliot, who has renounced his American citizenship in favor of British one. However, the fact stays true that America’s innovation apparent in its swift technological progress made in the second half of nineteeth century and furthered in the first half of twentieth century prepared the ground for what has become known as “modernism”. But what is it? As a matter of fact, there have been many discussions of it and thus many definitions of it exist. But since the most widely used resource of definitions is
Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, let’s go to it for a proper definition – thus, it defines modernism as “a modern artistic or literary philosophy and practice, especially a self-conscious break with the past and a search for new forms of expression” (Modernism). It is indeed true that most of the above-mentioned writers have been seeking something new and did find it in various way, thereby changing the landscape of twentieth century titerature – the ways in which they have done so are described in the following paragraph.
As mentioned in the previous paragraph, the American authors of twentieth century were the leaders of the artistic movement of modernism. More specifically speaking, those giants of thought were Hemingway, whose terse style has affected the American and world literature to the point of giving it a totally different face: one devoid of embellishment, which, as one esteemed literary critic has put it, has “created a distinctive view of the modern postwar world” (Benson 362); and T.S. Eliot, whose innovative style of writing poetry has drawn on the newly discovered techniques of cinema to create poetry that features “scenes following one another immediately, without the connections or transitions that a convenitonal writer would provide” (Marshall and others 588). The two most characteristic examples of Hemingway’s and Eliot’s works are The Sun Also Rises and The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, the latter of which clearly shows the above-described phenomenon of poetry borrowing some of its narrative devices from the art of cinema. But the main point here is that both The Sun Also Rises and The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock provide perfect examples of twentieth century modernism in that they feature protagonists with antihero qualities who scoff at the conventional modes of morality.
The antihero qualities of the protagonists of The Sun Also Rises and The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock become evident when one considers their nihilism. Thus, the protagonist of The Sun Also Rises, Jake Barnes, is a symbol of nihilism. The very first few lines show him as such: “Robet Cohn was once middleweight boxing champion of Princeton. Do not think that I am very much impressed by that as a boxing title, but it mean a lot to Cohn” (Hemingway 11). Thus, he shows his dislike of conventional value system and wants to distance himself from it. He goes on to say that “I never met any one of his class who remembered him. They did not even remember that he was middleweight champion” (Hemingway 11), thereby implying that no one cared about his title. Then, he goes on to say that he mistrusts “all frank and simple people” (Hemingway 12), clearly going against the widespread norms of morality. In addition to undervaluing other people’s achievements, Jake is also sceptical about their motives. Thus, describing Robert Cohn’s mistress, he says that she “hoped to rise with the magazine,” which Rober Cohn has established, but seeing “that the magazine was not going to rise, she became a little disgusted with Cohn and decided that she might as well get what there was to get” (Hemingway 13). Another facet of Jakes’ personality that qualifies him as nihilist is his biting sarcasm. Thus, when describing the smile of a girl he just met, he says that “she smiled and showed all her bad teeth” (Hemingway 24); then, introducing her to his friends, presenting her as his girlfriend, despite having just met her an hour ago, he says that “Georgette smiled that wonderful smile” (Hemingway 27), thereby showing his biting sarcasm. And since sarcasm is “a sharp and often satirical or ironic utterance designed to cut or give pain” (Sarcasm), it is obvious that it serves the author, as well as the narrator, the protagonist, as a way of showcasing his nihilism: even though he is with her and is seen in conjunction with her, definitely having the opinion of his friends about him somewhat influenced by her behavior and appearance, he cannot care less about how she looks, because he is above that: he has his code of honor. This is precisely the kind of Hemingwayesque outlook that Harold Bloom talks about in his critical study of Ernest Hemingway’s works, referring to Hemingway’s characters: “they have maintained, even in the practical defeat, an ideal of themselves… by which they have lived. They represent some notion of a code, some notion of honor, that makes a man a man” (30).
On the other hand, J. Alfred Prufrock, the protagonist of The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, seems to lack any definite code of honor, being paralyzed by indecision and being an emotional cripple. However, he shares Barnes’ biting sarcasm. He shows it when he “oppressed by time… makes fun of his own obsession with it… saying, ‘there will be time… for a hundred visions and revisions’… suggesting that the grandeur of imagination could be edited with a blue pencil” (Marshall and others 588). His nihilism also shows in his pessimism. Thus, he relates his preoccupation with the past and his subsequent inability to see the future from any other point of view but that of past misfortunes:
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
For I have known them all already, known them all –
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?
(Marshall and others 585)
While it is evident that the keynote characteristic of given excerpt is heart-wrenching despair, it is also evident that the latter question hints at the uncertainty present in speaker’s mind: he does not know what his attitude toward the reality should be, thereby hinting at the confusion that does not let him sit still. In that respect he is drastically different from Jake Barnes, who embodies what Hemingway has termed “grace under pressure”. However, he is similar to Jake Barnes in that he shares “his thorough disillusionment, a quality that reflected the author’s [Hemingway’s] own outllook – that at the mysterious center of creation lay nothing at all” (Marshall and others 567).
The Sun Also Rises and The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock are perfect examples of twentieth century modernism in that they feature protagonists who are epitomes of twentieth century modernism in that they scoff at the conventional modes of morality and establish their own modes of behavior, though J. Alfred Prufrock’s mode of behavior seems to be more messy than that of Jack Barnes in that it lacks any definite code of honor.
References
Bloom, Harold. Ernest Hemingway. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 2005. Print.
Benson, Jackson J. New Critical Approaches to the Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1990. Print.
Hemingway, Ernest. The Sun Also Rises. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006. Print.
Marshall, Kristine E., and others, eds. Holt Literature & Language Arts: Essentials of American Literature. Austin, Texas: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 2005. Print.
“Modernism.” Merriam-Webster’s 11th Collegiate Dictionary. Merriam-Webster Incorporated, 2003. DVD.
“Sarcasm.” Merriam-Webster’s 11th Collegiate Dictionary. Merriam-Webster Incorporated, 2003. DVD.