Personally Discovering 20th Century British Lit
Writing Like A Modernist: Part 3 of 4
Part three brings us to High Modernism and the Angry Young Men movement. The term High Modernism is used commonly in reference to cultural productivity that took place after the First World War and into the 1930s, sometimes referred to as literature between the wars. The interesting thing about High modernism is that it is not a specific style of writing. Instead, it is better seen as an attitude about how literature is created, its purpose, and the function of the writer. The High Modernist writer strives to increase society’s self-conscious realization of the unique dilemmas that had emerged. Truth and existentialism are prominent themes.
To put it a little more plainly, knowledge in all areas of life was being called into question; especially truth. The idea behind truth in High Modernist works is that it is subjective. Ones opinion and worldview is their truth, but it can change at any time! Further-more, factual truth and emotional truth must confront one another. Human factual knowledge can’t fulfill human emotional need. Likewise, knowledge is never finished; it is a continuous process and the end is constantly changing and must be continuously reevaluated.
Some examples
Rebecca West- Return of the Soldier 1918
T.S. Eliot- The waste Land 1922
Virginia Woolf –Mrs. Dalloway 1925 and To the Lighthouse 1927
Rebecca West’s novel Return of the Soldier is about a soldier who comes home from war with memory loss of the last 15 years. The novel explores the question of reality and truth. The soldier has an alternate truth from everyone else and yet, it is still his truth. Human factual knowledge is not fulfilling his emotional knowledge. In Mrs. Dalloway, most of the plot consists of realizations that the characters subjectively make. By focusing on characters’ thoughts and perceptions, Woolf emphasizes the significance of private thoughts on existential crisis rather than concrete events that cause it.
This brings us to post modernism. On May 7, 1956, a new play called Look Back in Anger opened at the Royal Court Theatre in Sloane Square. The author was a young actor/stage manager named John Osborne, and the play was actually a blast of rage directed at his ex-wife after a painful separation.
The Angry Young Men were a new breed of intellectuals who were mostly of the working class or lower middle class. They shared an outspoken disdain for the British class system, the postwar welfare state, and the failing of postwar reformations attempt to create change only added fuel to their fire.
Characters of this movement are usually mirrors of the authors, working-class males, who view society through a bitter angry lens. With just enough education to be considered intellects, but poor enough to still be part of the working class, it was difficult for them to find a sense of belonging. This movement was well exhausted by the 60s.
How would Virginia Woolf or Rebecca West respond to a moth falling into their cup of coffee? Woolf is known for keeping an extensive diary where she would reflect about her day and keep record of the progress of her various works. She would probably write about it there.
Diary Entry: Some Date in the 20th century
It was warm today for this time of year and on a visit with some of the Bloomsbury members, we enjoyed our tea on the lawn as the sun was warming one particular part of the garden against the side of the house. A moth landed in my tea. A simple creature I assumed but really the moth is quite complex. Great metal airplanes soar through the sky powered by fuel and motors. This little winged creature had miniscule tendons to flap its wings. A small machine in it’s own respect fell into my drink to die. Thinking back on it now, the incident has lost some of its significance to me but during that moment, I felt as though my presence in the world was meant to end that little creature’s life. Of all the people who were sitting nearby, my cup was to become a coffin. Could there be someone in the world whose presence will mark my own end? With air raids and a season of war about it may not be unlikely.
How would John Osborne respond to a moth falling into his cup of coffee or most likely tea?…perhaps by writing a stage monologue.
Stage directions: AT RISE OF CURTAIN, a young play write, KENNETH, is sitting on the front stoop of an apartment complex somewhere in the skirts of London. It is mid-morning, and his tea steams lightly, slowly mixing into the particularly heavy smog. He is reading a newspaper as the butcher across the street begins to hang various poultry carcasses for the trickle of Sunday morning customers leaving church. A church bell tolls in the background.
KENNETH: God, how I hate mornings! Every one of them the same, Sunday or not. I sit here, reading drab headlines about nothing important, drink lukewarm tea and watch old Alan hang fresh bodies along the sidewalk. How is a man supposed to find inspiration in all of this suffering? That’s all this life really is anyway! He stands up and starts pacing on the sidewalk.It rains out of the sky watering crops so that when we eat food we ingest it straight into our bodies.
Education was supposed to make a path of progress for men like me. Instead, I never get any further. A customer stops at the butchers and buys a small duck. That damn butcher probably makes a better living than I do. A steady one anyway. Imagine, slaughtering squawking birds every night and letting their blood drain down the street so you can sell their bodies to ravenous housewives. He stops pacing in front of where he was originally sitting. That’s exactly what happens to working class educated men like me. We waste our life away squawking about until one day, WACK! A butcher drains our blood! He picks up and looks into what’s left of his now cold tea and pauses, watching for a moment
Ha! Another perfect example! This moth thinks he can escape from the dregs of my tea. Well I hate to break it to you little friend but this life is not what you think it is. There is no escaping this! Even when our instincts drive us to crawl and climb over Earth. Working for something better is just squandering what talent and unique capabilities we might have trying to achieve our destiny. Our wings are destroyed because really, our destiny is to drown, not fly! Those birds drown in their own blood and you’ll drown in my tea. As for me? Well, I’m already drowning in this London smog- doing the same thing every morning, slowly killing myself. At least its quick for the birds…and for you. He reaches one finger into his mug killing the moth. He sits back down and continues to read the paper as the butcher continues to work across the street.
Part 4 will be about making sense of all this information
