Chapter Seven

Modernism (1910-1945)

 Literary modernism, or modernist literature, has its origins

in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, mainly in Europe and
North America. Some philosophers, like Georg Lukacs, theorized
that literary modernism had its origins in the philosophy of Walter
Benjamin. Modernism is characterized by a self-conscious break
with traditional styles of poetry and verse. Modernists
experimented with literary form and expression, adhering to Ezra
Pound's maxim to "Make it new".

 Historical, Social, & Cultural Highlights of the Modern Era

include:
1. two devastating almost-global wars: World War I (1914-
1918) and World War II (1941-1945)
2. huge changes in industry and technology as compared to
the 19th century
3. the rise in power and influence of international corporations
4. interconnectedness across the globe: cultural exchanges,
transportation, communication, mass (or popular) culture from
the West (with "West" being considered Europe and North
America)
5. the "Westernization" of many formerly traditional societies
and nations and a resulting change in their values (often their
the detriment of the formerly traditional society and nation).
These "modern" values include a belief in the desirability of
industrialization, individual political rights, democracy, mass

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 literacy and education, private ownership of the means of
production, the scientific method, public institutions like those
in the West.

As a reaction to Realism and Naturalism, some critics see in

Modernism at least FOUR "isms" or literary movements that make
up the literature of the Modern era: impressionism, expressionism,
surrealism, and nihilism.
Four Literary "isms" Inside Modernism
1. Whereas Realism attempted to portray external objects and
events as the common or middle class man sees them in everyday
life, impressionism tries to portray the psychological impressions
these objects and events make on characters, emphasizing the
role of individual perception and exploring the nature of the
conscious and unconscious mind.
2. Whereas Realism tried to focus on these external objects and
events, expressionism tried to express the inner vision, the inner
emotion, or the inner spiritual reality that seem more important
than the external realities of objects and events.
3. Whereas Realism focused on external objects and events as they
are (verisimilitude), surrealism tried to liberate the
subconscious, to see connections overlooked by the logical mind,
to deny the supreme authority of rationality and so portray
objects and events as they seem rather than as they are.
4. Whereas Realism tried to show the supreme importance of
rationalness and reason, absurdism tried to duplicate in
literature the absurd conditions of contemporary life: nameless
millions dying in wars, unknowable world void of a spiritual
center and the ultimate absurd circumstances in which
contemporary humankind found itself.

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 Modernism shares with Realism
 a focus on the psychology of the individual
 sees the work of art as a coherent whole worthy of study.

Characteristics of Modernism in Literature:

1. uses images ("word pictures") and symbols as typical and
frequent literary techniques
2. uses colloquial language rather than formal language
3. uses language in a very self-conscious way, seeing language
as a technique for crafting the piece of literature just as an
artist crafts a piece of art like a sculpture or a painting
4. uses language as a special medium that influences
what that piece of literature can do or can be
5. saw the piece of literature as an object crafted by an artist
using particular techniques, crafts, skills (recall how the
Romantics thought the piece of literature was a work of
genius that somehow appears full-blown from the
imagination of the genius). Form, style, and technique thus
become as important--if not more so--than content or
substance.
6. often, the intention of writers in the Modern period is to
change the way readers see the world and to change
our understanding of what language is and does

Modernist literature is the literary expression of the tendencies of

Modernism, especially High modernism. Modernistic art and literature
normally revolved around the idea of individualism, mistrust of
institutions (government, religion), and the disbelief of any
absolute truths.

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 Characteristics of Modernity/Modernism

 Formal/Stylistic characteristics
 Free indirect speech
 Stream of consciousness
 Juxtaposition of characters
 Wide use of classical allusions
 Figure of speech
 Intertextuality
 Personification
 Hyperbole
 Parataxis
 Comparison
 Quotation
 Pun
 Satire
 Irony
 Antiphrasis (using a word in a sense opposite to its normal meaning)
 Unconventional use of metaphor
 Symbolic representation
 Psychoanalysis
 Discontinuous narrative
 Metanarrative
 Multiple narrative points of view

 Thematic characteristics
 Breakdown of social norms
 Realistic embodiment of social meanings
 Separation of meanings and senses from the context
 Despairing individual behaviors in the face of an unmanageable
future

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 Spiritual loneliness
 Alienation
 Frustration
 Disillusionment
 Rejection of history
 Rejection of outdated social systems
 Objection to traditional thoughts and traditional moralities
 Objection to religious thoughts
 Substitution of a mythical past
 Two World Wars' effects on humanity

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 Ernest Hemingway - 'Cat in the Rain'

There were only two Americans stopping at the hotel. They did
not know any of the people they passed on the stairs on their way to
and from their room. Their room was on the second floor facing the
sea. It also faced the public garden and the war monument. There
were big palms and green benches in the public garden.
In the good weather there was always an artist with his easel.
Artists liked the way the palms grew and the bright colors of the
hotels facing the gardens and the sea.
Italians came from a long way off to look up at the war
monument. It was made of bronze and glistened in the rain. It was
raining. The rain dripped from the palm trees. Water stood in pools
on the gravel paths. The sea broke in a long line in the rain and
slipped back down the beach to come up and break again in a long
line in the rain. The motor cars were gone from the square by the
war monument. Across the square in the doorway of the cafe a
waiter stood looking out at the empty square.
The American wife stood at the window looking out. Outside right
under their window a cat was crouched under one of the dripping
green tables. The cat was trying to make herself so compact that she
would not be dripped on.
'I'm going down and get that kitty,' the American wife said.
'I'll do it,' her husband offered from the bed.
'No, I'll get it. The poor kitty out trying to keep dry under a table.'
The husband went on reading, lying propped up with the two pillows
at the foot of the bed.
'Don't get wet,' he said.
The wife went downstairs and the hotel owner stood up and
bowed to her as she passed the office. His desk was at the far end of
the office. He was an old man and very tall.

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 'Il piove,1 'the wife said. She liked the hotel-keeper.
'Si, Si, Signora, brutto tempo2. It is very bad weather.'
He stood behind his desk in the far end of the dim room. The wife
liked him. She liked the deadly serious way he received any
complaints. She liked his dignity. She liked the way he wanted to
serve her. She liked the way he felt about being a hotel-keeper. She
liked his old, heavy face and big hands.
Liking him she opened the door and looked out. It was raining
harder. A man in a rubber cape was crossing the empty square to
the cafe. The cat would be around to the right. Perhaps she could go
along under the eaves. As she stood in the doorway an umbrella
opened behind her. It was the maid who looked after their room.
'You must not get wet,' she smiled, speaking Italian. Of course, the
hotel-keeper had sent her.
With the maid holding the umbrella over her, she walked along
the gravel path until she was under their window. The table was
there, washed bright green in the rain, but the cat was gone. She
was suddenly disappointed. The maid looked up at her.
'Ha perduto qualque cosa, Signora?'3
'There was a cat,' said the American girl.
'A cat?'
'Si, il gatto.'
'A cat?' the maid laughed. 'A cat in the rain?'
'Yes, -' she said, 'under the table.' Then, 'Oh, I wanted it so much. I
wanted a kitty.'
When she talked English the maid's face tightened.
'Come, Signora,' she said. 'We must get back inside. You will be wet.'
'I suppose so,' said the American girl.

1
'It's raining.'
2
'Yes, yes Madam. Awful weather.'
'Have you lost something, Madam?'

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 They went back along the gravel path and passed in the door.
The maid stayed outside to close the umbrella. As the American girl
passed the office, the padrone bowed from his desk. Something felt
very small and tight inside the girl. The padrone made her feel very
small and at the same time really important. She had a momentary
feeling of being of supreme importance. She went on up the stairs.
She opened the door of the room. George was on the bed, reading.
'Did you get the cat?' he asked, putting the book down.
'It was gone.'
'Wonder where it went to,' he said, resting his eyes from reading.
She sat down on the bed.
'I wanted it so much,' she said. 'I don't know why I wanted it so
much. I wanted that poor kitty. It isn't any fun to be a poor kitty out
in the rain.'
George was reading again.
She went over and sat in front of the mirror of the dressing table
looking at herself with the hand glass. She studied her profile, first
one side and then the other. Then she studied the back of her head
and her neck.
'Don't you think it would be a good idea if I let my hair grow out?'
she asked, looking at her profile again.
George looked up and saw the back of her neck, clipped close like a
boy's.
'I like it the way it is.'
'I get so tired of it,' she said. 'I get so tired of looking like a boy.'
George shifted his position in the bed. He hadn't looked away from
her since she started to speak.
'You look pretty darn nice,' he said.
She laid the mirror down on the dresser and went over to the
window and looked out. It was getting dark.

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 'I want to pull my hair back tight and smooth and make a big
knot at the back that I can feel,' she said. 'I want to have a kitty to
sit on my lap and purr when I stroke her.'
'Yeah?' George said from the bed.
'And I want to eat at a table with my own silver and I want
candles. And I want it to be spring and I want to brush my hair out
in front of a mirror and I want a kitty and I want some new clothes.'
'Oh, shut up and get something to read,' George said. He was
reading again.

His wife was looking out of the window. It was quite dark now and
still raining in the palm trees.
'Anyway, I want a cat,' she said, 'I want a cat. I want a cat now. If
I can't have long hair or any fun, I can have a cat.'
George was not listening. He was reading his book. His wife
looked out of the window where the light had come on in the
square.
Someone knocked at the door.

'Avanti,' George said. He looked up from his book.

In the doorway stood the maid. She held a big tortoiseshell cat
pressed tight against her and swung down against her body.
'Excuse me,' she said, 'the padrone asked me to bring this for the
Signora.'

Sources:

[Link]
[Link]

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 Modernist elements in Hemingway’s “Cat in the Rain”?

1. The lack of communication in ‘Cat in the Rain’. The woman’s

reading husband is indifferent to her discovery of the cat,
except to volunteer half-heartedly to get the cat (most likely
to keep her from complaining). The woman cannot seem to
connect with her husband, who treats her almost like an
annoying child, as much as with the pathetic cat outside.
2. The characters’ sense of alienation from each other and
themselves: as the author tells about the American couple on
foreign soil with no friends or acquaintances.
3. The character’s dissatisfaction with life: she's unable to say
what exactly is making her dissatisfied in her life; instead,
she harps on a multitude of small things. Her dissatisfaction
with the life she leads with her husband is particularly
problematic because, like the cat trapped under the table in
the rain, there's not really any way to escape
4. The changing role of women in society – she seems unsure about
who she is and how she should behave.
5. The odd, episodic structure of ‘Paragraphs’ with their thematic
links.

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