American Lit Definition of Modernism and Three

American Lit

Definition of Modernism and Three Examples

Indeed, creating a true and solid definition of modernism is exceptionally difficult, and even most of the more scholarly critical accounts of the so-called modernist movement tend to divide the category into more or less two different movements, being what is known as "high modernism," which reflected the erudition and scholarly experimentalism of Eliot, Joyce, and Pound, and the so-called "low modernism" of later American practitioners, such as William Carlos Williams. Nonetheless, despite the problems of reification involved with such a task, I will attempt to invoke a definitions of at least some traits of modernism, as culled from the Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics:

First, [in modernism] "realization" had to replace description, so that instead of copying the external world the work could render it in an image insisting on its own forms of reality... [and] Second, the poets develop collage techniques for intensifying the sense of productive immediacy.

Preminger and Brogan 793)

Thus, the two substantively important aspects of modernism are an attempt to deal with psychological realization over mimetic representation and a general interest in the use of collage as a technique.

Indeed, under this definition, although it is often not thought of in exactly these terms, Willa Cather's novel My Antonia is indubitably a modern novel in the sense of the above ideas about modernism, in that it not only tends to employ the use of image and representation in favor of mimetic description and also for the fact that it presents a collagistic order of things rather than a purely chronological. In terms of shying away from mimetic representation, this is implicitly held in Cather's books from the first pages when Jim Burden states early on that no one could really understand life on the plains without having actually lived there. This sense of the ineffable permeates the entire books, culminating in poetic descriptions and images rather than mimetic representation. Secondly, although there is an overarching narrative to the novel of sorts, it is largely composed of vignettes, which are offered as memories of the narrator himself. Indeed, in this fashion the narrative structure is largely collagistic and based on the function of memory rather than a traditional chronological linearity.

Secondly, William Faulkner's Light in August is similarly an example of the sorts of work that we would expect to see from an author who can be successfully defined as being under the sway of so-called modernism. His use of the technique known as "stream of consciousness" throughout the novel itself both suggest an avoidance of the mimetic and an interest in collage. Indeed, since everything is stream of consciousness and explained psychologically, the flow of the prose is imagistic and representational rather than mimetic in its nature. Similarly, since stream of consciousness is subject to the rules of metonymy, which is surely as collagistic a principle as can be said to exist, then it certainly fulfills the second dictates as well. This focus on metonymy over mimesis is primarily what qualifies Faulkner's work as modernist.

Lastly, Ernest Hemmingway's The Sun Also Rises, can also be said to be a work that is legitimately within the modernist vein. While it doesn't apply the sort of verbal maximalism of Faulkner's stream of consciousness technique, it still employs the kinds of metonymic and collagistic framing points that define it as modernist. Similarly, its focus on the psychological states of its characters, such as the impotence of its narrator, which appears to be both a metaphorical and literal condition, makes it representational rather than mimetic in emphasis.

Thus, two main characteristics of modernism lie in the tendency of modernist works to go in for psychological representation rather than mimetic representation and for works characteristic of modernism to employ techniques like collage (and by extension related metonymic principles) in its construction instead of a mimetic mode. Since the three works discussed above all fulfill those criteria, albeit in distinct and different ways, then they can reliably be considered "modernist."

2) Strategies of Narrative Point-of-View

Indeed, perhaps there is no greater line in terms of immediately defining the point-of-view within the narrative as Herman Melville's opening line to his great novel, Moby Dick in which the narrator speaks directly to the reader, saying "Call me Ishmael." In so doing, Melville manages to establish an immediate contact between his narrator and the reader, which is at once intriguing and exceptionally human. He creates this sense by having his narrator introduce himself to us, just as any person that we would meet. In so doing, he immediately makes his narrator accessible and human.

In his novella, The Turn of the Screw, Henry James uses exactly the opposite notion of narration, by employing a narrator who is hearing a story that is derived from the notes and journals of another person. Also, by having the teller of the story refuse to deliver it up to the narrator and the assembled guests at first, James also creates an air of enigma and suspense around the story. In this particular fashion, then, his story's point-of-view feels quite different from the amiable and intriguing character of Ahab with whom we can identify immediately and with whom we feel a basic human connection. Indeed, the distance between the narrator and the story makes the story itself seem more strange and, indeed, alien, which is, of course, the only proper thing for a ghost story to do, in terms of the simple way in which it functions.

In her great novel, My Antonia, Willa Cather employs a first person narrator in the same fashion as both Henry James and Herman Melville do in the two works discussed above, but she places her narrative powers within the person of someone who has just met her principle character of Jim Burden on a train. Like Burden, the narrator, too, is from the plains region and grew up knowing Antonia as well. There are several reasons fro doing this: part of it lies in the idea that by having this other character seems slightly obsessed over Antonia as well, we can see that there is something beyond mere obsession in Jim Burden's idea, especially since Antonia come to be sort of a free-floating signifier that somehow indicates the entirety of the plains regions itself, as well as being an individual index of the life and times of Jim Burden.

The narrator in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby is similarly a sort of bystander in the action of the story, who, although he meets the principle characters within it, manages to stay removed effectively from the main action of the piece and thus is not involved in the great tragedy at the work's end. Indeed, Nick's role remains ambiguous, as do the nature of some of the romantic troubles that he seems to describe at the novel's inception. The authorial trick involved with dealing with Nick like this is twofold. The first effect is that, by employing this technique, Fitzgerald is able to underscore the sort of alienation that his characters experience in the novel by similarly alienating us from the narrator, who is distant and mysterious, largely unlike the overly friendly and considerably more amiable Ishmael that narrates Moby Dick.

In a manner that is exceptionally different from all of these works, Nathaniel Hawthorne in his great novel, The Scarlet Letter, narrates everything using an exceptionally flowery and verbose third-person narrator, the reasoning for which is perhaps to distance himself slightly from the title character of Hester Prynne. Indeed, there is an extremely intelligent reason behind this since Hester would have been objectionable to most people of Hawthorne's day, and, by having a third person narrator, the revelation of the fact the Hester is indeed a good person despite her actions seems more objective and real, and seems to take place within the consciousness of the reader, rather than by some conjuring trick of the narrator who has influenced everyone by using the authoritative power of his voice.

3). Is There a Typical American Hero?

Indeed, in considering the list of novels above, it would seem that there is a typical American hero, in that the typical American hero depicted in these novels is precisely atypical. Indeed, it seems that the most common mode of depicting heroes within the American tradition is by depicting antiheroes. Antiheroes, unlike traditional heroes, are often people who have some or very few admirable qualities, but who, manage to triumph and learn something and occasionally become better people. Sometimes antiheroes are considered such because there have been a series of societal effects that have affected them in such a way as to force them to be placed in the position of an outcast or an outsider. Thus, there is often a social and didactic purpose for placing such a character within the context of the role of hero. Therefore, the American tradition of the antihero can also be read as part of the tradition of the American tradition of individualism, in which people are prized for their uniqueness. Antiheroes are thus often those whose heroic qualities are left unrealized by mainstream American society.

In Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic work, The Scarlet Letter, he depicts an antihero, or better, an antiheroine, in the form of the character of Hester Prynne. Indeed, Hester would most certainly fall into this latter class of antiheroes, who represents an individual who is downtrodden and oppressed because of her damaged and saddened societal position and as a result of this, Hawthorne has chosen her as a hero to make us aware of her plight. Thus, in choosing her, Hawthorne had a social and didactic purpose in choosing Hester as his model because she is an example of the sort of person who is made to be an outcast in society for one mistake that she made when, at heart, she is basically a very good, honest, and strong person who has many heroic qualities aside from her more human weaker ones.

Similarly, Bigger Thomas, the erstwhile protagonist of Richard Wright's incendiary novel Native Son, is a largely objectionable character who really has few endearing or redeeming qualities. Indeed, among his crimes in the novel are the commission of a murder (although he does so by accident), his decision to decapitate the body of the deceased woman and shove it into the furnace, and a flight from the police who are encroaching and cornering him in on all sides. Indeed, Thomas, however, despite his anger and his objectionable actions, is also someone who, because of his race and his class, was never given a fair chance in the world, and Wright is attempting to point out the sorts of societal problems associated with race and class as they currently exist within the world. Again, the purpose her is largely didactic in its essence.

The protagonist of Kate Chopin's alleged masterwork is Edna, a young mother trapped inside a marriage that fails to bring her any pleasure or happiness. Indeed, after an aborted early romance with a young man named Robert, Edna begins to realize that there is a large and impressive world out beyond the reaches of what she imagines and attempts to engage on a voyage of discovery. But at every turn she is forced to realize that there are continually a large series of restraining and encroaching factors that limit her freedom, largely because she is a woman, and, in ultimate frustration, she commits suicide at the novels end, allowing herself to drown in the all consuming tug of ocean tides. Indeed, Chopin's purpose is also didactic and social in its character, in that she is attempting to explain the difficulties and the problems that women face in society because their roles are so limited in terms of the scope and availability of the options that are given to them.

Thus the common and typical feature of the hero of American literature lies in the very fact that they are atypical. Thus, the typical American hero is in fact the antihero or antiheroine, who is most distinguishable and discernable for the fact that the possess many unheroic qualities, but often these qualities are the result of the fact that the people question are outcasts or otherwise oppressed by society in a fashion that leaves them with few other options.

4.) Is Moby Dick the Great American Novel?

Moby Dick, which was certainly Herman Melville's masterwork has had a storied and interesting career from its very inception -- indeed, the novel itself was a dismal commercial failure upon its initial publication (Melville's earlier works had sold briskly and given him some degree of literary fame in America, although more as a serializer of nautical reminiscences than as a novelist). With the failure of the novel, Melville seemed discouraged in his later writing endeavors and certainly he never again attempted to write a novel anywhere close to as ambitious in its scope in the fashion that Moby Dick was. Also, as a result of the financial failure of the novel, he was also forced to take a job inspecting ships, which prevented him from writing to the degree and the extent that he would have liked. As to the merits of Moby Dick, itself, there certainly are definite problems with the work of fiction -- it is difficult and oddly paced. Nonetheless, in its use of memorable characters, its unique prose stylings with extended sentences, and it basically motivating story of man against nature, it certainly has all the elements of greatness in it. Nonetheless, there are ways in which it falls short of its mark, nonetheless, I would argue that as a "failure" both commercially and artistically (in which it comes very close to being the greatest American novel while still missing the mark by a slight and slim margin) Moby Dick remains an essential part of the cannon and must be taught in schools.

Indeed, the characters alone make it a necessary read for any student of American Literature, or any student of literature in America. For example, the hilarious first interaction between Quequegg and Ishmael and wonderful and certainly reveal a great deal about both of the characters, as does the former's tendency to always bring a coffin with him when bunking amidships upon the open sea. Indeed, for these delightful and intriguing character's alone, Melville's novel deserve to be read and certainly, these are the parts wherein his brilliance shines and we can call the novel conclusively great, and even locate, at moments the exact degree, development, and epicenter of its greatness from which the other elements radiate. Thus, from the simple aspect of character alone it would not only not be impossible to indict Melville's novel as hackwork, but also it must be realized that in this particular realm if no other, his narrative ascends from the realm of simple expression and reaches the highest level of artistic expression in terms of creating well-formed and nuanced characters who are memorable and whose actions strike as human and funny.

On the other hand, however, there are the long expository sections of Moby Dick that do tend to drag by explaining all of the most gritty and unnecessary details of life on a whaling ship, on the types of whales, and on a varying degree of other technical and professional aspects of the seaman's trade as it was applied in the business of whaling back in Melville's day these. These chapters, including his sections on "cetalogy" or the science of whales in which Ishmael hilariously (though it is an unintentional humor) declares that a whale is indisputably a fish (instead of a mammal) drag and drone on and generally interrupt the narrative flow of the novel in a strange and significant fashion. Indeed, the seem strange and are often related to the great thrust of the narrative by means of tangential reasoning at best, and more realistically, by no means whatsoever or even any possibly realistic link at worst. However, there is a reasonably defense for this tendency of Melville's, which while it doesn't excuse it aesthetically, at least explains the tangents. One must remember that Melville began his career as a successful member of the literati by publishing two travelogues that were basically tales of exotic memoirs, being the works Typee and Omoo and that these novels gained him both fame and fortune. Thus, part of his mode is expository in a reactionary fashion and thus explains these sections.

Moreover, to do Melville a fair amount of credit, the very fact that his novel is a failure, both commercially and aesthetically, is a fact that makes it very much like almost all of the other American novels that are considered great. Indeed, consider briefly the allegedly "great" American novel, Sister Carrie, by Theodore Dreisser. Like Moby Dick there are many great moments and great characters in the book (indeed, Dreisser is quite possibly considerable more deft in terms of his use of plotting and narrative than Melville generally is), yet, nonetheless, almost even the most uneducated reader will notice that his prose is typically contrived, clunky, and at its worst, almost semiliterate. Similarly, we could consider William Gaddis' great 20th century work The Recognitions, which was so critically ignored that the author did not finish another work for more than twenty years. Indeed, even though he did and later received the National Book Award and some other much-deserved attention, even most educated people have never heard of it, and certainly only a very few people have actually bothered to read it in its entirety. Thus, after a fashion, Moby Dick is sort of the archetype for the failure of great American novels to be great either in terms of cultural or popular success or else in terms of strange and often inexplicable aesthetic amateurishness alongside elements in a work that are otherwise unquestionably great.