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The 20th century is a turbulent age. With the rise of modern industry, the economy has developed rapidly, but people are mentally dominated by panic and not free, and the alienation between individuals and nature, society, others and even self is magnified. In the World War I, human beings use the weapons invented by science and technology to massacre their own kind, and the concepts of freedom, love, and humanity in the western society have been ruined by war. Western civilization was thrown into a deep crisis, and modernist movement is the product of this age. Modernist movement, also known as modernism, is generally considered as the opposite of tradition and often understood as an intense rejection of the past since there is an emphasis on the new and being avant-garde, and this kind of avant-garde can be found both stylistically and conceptually. Moreover, modernism is considered as a global movement rather than nation specific. The avant-garde of modernist literature can be found as substantial stylistic breaks with previous modes of literary and aesthetic expression in various of ways, for example, the radical experimentation with language, form, modes of narration, disorganization, characterization, and representation. To be more specific, the Modernist writers adapted the stream of conscious technique, for example, Yi Sang is said to be one of the first Korean authors to write stream of consciousness novels, such as The Wings. Stream of consciousness is a genre defined by the subject matter of the novel, which follows the thoughts rather than actions of a character. It is distinguished from psychological novels since it focuses on the first phase of thought, before it is rationalized and logically ordered. In The Wings, the narrator is also identified as an unreliable narrator, which means that he may not correctly or completely represent the situation, thus he can be considered as an anti-hero protagonist, and he is also a first-person narrator. The disorganization can be seen in Kawabata’s snow country, some scenes in the novel have hidden beginnings, some omit the process, and some have vague endings, and this is also the reason why Snow Country is compared to the style of haiku since the scenes are brief with crisp endings and provides plenty imagination space for readers. Also, in Snow Country, Kawabata focuses on “telling” rather than “showing” style of characterization. The characterization is rendered delicately in Snow Country, the characters seem to be flat or opaque at the first glance since Kawabata removes third-person perspective, and readers have to read carefully between the lines to perceive the characters’ quirks and sensitivities due to the unlabeled dialogues. Moreover, in traditional poetry, rhyme is one of the constitutive factors, and it results when the vowel and the succeeding sounds are identical; however, modernist poets abandon traditional rhyme schemes and write in free verse, for example, Yeats’ “The Second Coming” is a rhymer free poem since there is no end rhyme and no regular phonological rhythm though it has a consistent meter. The blank verse of “The Second Coming” is to express the speaker’s didactic nature as he uses a religious voice to warn people to go back to their moral values and religious traditions. Conceptually, the avant-garde of modernist works also has various of aspects. For example, In “Snow Country”, Komako says “It’s very sad. We use to be able to work things out together, but know it’s every geisha for herself. The place has changed. New geisha comes in and no one gets along with anyone else.” (97). Moreover, in “The Wings”, the narrator states that nobody he knows comes to the tea room, and it is a great discovery of his. Both of the two scenarios are an example of the issue of social disconnection. In “Snow Country”, Shimamura is an urban settler in Tokyo, but he visits the snow country for not only one but three times in total. Moreover, as a Japanese man, he is supposed to like oriental dance, but he is obsessed with western ballet though he has never seen one. These facts reveal an alienated modern man’s ambivalent feeling between modern and tradition. In “The Wings”, the narrator’s wife uses Adaline instead of aspirin to treat his symptoms. Though the narrator recovers by having some rest, taking too much Adaline still can be harmful, which makes the narrator wonders that if his wife wants to kill him gradually, and it is an example of the anxiety associated with the medical world. In “Snow Country”, people gathering in the warehouse to watch movie, which is supposed to be fun; however, the movie tape causes a fire that make people throwing kids from the balcony, and people may burn to death or be hurt. This scene reveals a fascination with new technology, but also fear and disgust, and the modernity is incompatible with humanity. Komako states that people in Tokyo live in noise and confusion that their feelings are broken into pieces, and this comment reveals the dehumanizing aspect of modernity that it renders people against humanity. Also, the use of symbols can be found in modernist texts. In “The Second Coming”, Yeats points what he wants to say indirectly. The ‘gyre’ symbolizes the collapse of the authority and society, and the ‘falconer’ and ‘falcon’ symbolizes human beings and technologies respectively. The scene that the falcon can no longer hear the falconer expresses the idea that the technology rises so fast that it is getting out of human’s control, and it also reveals fear and disgust of technology and a loss of faith in science and progress. The ‘sphinx’ is a symbol which represents punishment of human beings who abandon their religion and come back to God only when they are hopeless, and the ‘Blood-dimmed tide’ is a symbol for World War I. The modernist movement should be seen as a global event rather than nation-specific one for various of reasons. To a certain extent, modernism can be considered to be the result of the cultural exchanges between the East and the West when they reached a certain level. As early as in 1922, British philosopher Russell already stated that the exchanges between different cultures have been proven many times as a milestone in the development of human civilization. In this process, ancient Greece learns from ancient Egypt, ancient Rome draws on ancient Greece, and so on. Differences between cultures induce inspiration and creativity of people and hence lead to innovation of culture. Eastern and western modernists influence and learn from each other and make modernism movement a global phenomenon. The Japanese Empire is generally considered as the center of modernity of East Asia in the early twentieth century primarily because of its extended engagement with Western countries.