Literary Resopnse to World War One

Social Activism and Literature

Two of the major themes in 20th century American literature are war and social protest. The United States has been engaged in a steady series of wars since the beginning of the 20th century. With the carnage of the First World War, the horrors of the Second, the futility of Vietnam, many writers and artists contributed to the literature of protest with respect to war, and America's involvement in it.

Amy Lowell's September, 1918 is a good example of how writers reacted to the First World War. Its presentation of a wistful era where there is no war, juxtaposed against the current "broken world," illustrates the yearning that many had for a world without war. The First World War had essentially eliminated any romance that there was of war in society, and its brutality would spark this sort of response across the world. For the first time, it became quite popular to think of a world without war, because now war was nothing but senseless destruction. Lowell highlighted this realization and the natural conclusion that people had that WWI was the war to end all wars.

Hemingway's Soldier's Home shows other after-effects of the war. The focus of this short story is on the post-traumatic stress faced by the soldier Krebs. By the time he returns to his small town Kansas home, the people there realize that the soldiers who survived the war were shattered, damaged beings. The return home is anything but joyous -- even though they survived, in many cases these were lives ruined. Krebs in an exchange with his mother at the breakfast tables tells her "I am not in the Kingdom of God," alluding to the horrors he has been through. The reality of the world is harsh for returning soldiers -- Krebs cannot handle that he must lie, because he sees war as built on lies, and how many millions died for lies. The circumstances that brought about his experiences in the war he sees, in a sense, repeated in the society in which he is now trying to live. He has changed and evolved from his experiences but the rest of his small town has not changed, and there is a strong disconnect.

Both the story and Lowell's poem portray the rejection that many felt in the aftermath of the war -- a rejection of war, the causes of war and an appreciation for its power as a negative force in the world. Where Lowell envisions the world without war in a bucolic way, this is not Krebs' experience, where his world without war is essentially a world without meaning. He cannot find meaning in love, in family or in religion. War has completely shattered him; this contrasts with Lowell's joyful children, unspoiled by war to illustrate war's devastating consequences.

It is easy to think of the pantheon of anti-Vietnam art as vibrant symbol of anti-war sentiment, but writers were disgusted by war even in the aftermath of the World War One, and were among those expressing concern for the effects of modern war. If Western society was clinging to the romantic notions of war and combat (i.e. in the Iliad, Beowulf) this notions were completely disavowed by the nature of war in the 20th century. Both authors effectively convey their impressions of war, one hopeful the other mournful. Both do it looking backwards at the war that just finished, to remind the reader of what just happened, and why it must never happen again.