The Movement

• Modernism builds on the foundation set by Impressionism, and lasts from about the early 1900s to 1945.
• It was a response to a shift in culture due to industrialization, urbanization, and the aftermath of WWI.
• This was the time of Charlie Chaplin who criticised mechanical reproduction of art, with his mechanical movement. It was a criticism of the American Dream.

Characteristics

• Modernism grew from disillusionment with: attitudes of certainty; conservatism; objective truth.
• In Modernism you see fragments of an individual, showing their thoughts and emotions in a non-linear sequence. This better reflects the human psychology as pieces of memories come and go throughout the day.
• There was often a lot of detail written, this was to create a vivid outside world to attach to, and distinguish it from individual consciousness.
• The reader receives more and more details but less and less certainty.
• There were open-ended conclusions.
• World War I: the first clash of man vs. machine.
• Some characters show cases of denial, usually pertaining to their struggle in society and their feelings about it.
• In Modernism the view is once again subjective, focusing on individual characters.
• There are more negative or empty feelings than positive, Modernism portrays a disillusioned world view.
• Nostalgia and cynicism are common.
• It deals with the uncertainties, anxieties and complexities of the modern era, and questions tradition.
• To add to the element of uncertainty, there are questions which go unanswered.
• The use of mythology was a way to make things impersonal because everyone knows it but it belongs to no one. Even though the style was new, by using myths, it incorporated the past (tradition).

Writing Tecnique

• It plays with new narrative techniques that explore inner thought such as stream of consciousness, non-linear timelines, and unreliable authors.
• Ambiguity: uncertainty of things said or taken place.
• The reader hears things as the character does, as though it’s the first time for everyone, it is in the present.
• Authors want to eliminate their presence.
• The narrator tells what they think is true.
• The writer creates a world for the reader to believe.
• Hemmingway’s "Iceberg Theory": where 7/8 lie beneath the surface.