American Modernism and the Jazz Age
Historical Context: From Boom to Depression
At the beginning of the 20th century, Americans saw themselves as culturally inferior to Europe but morally superior. After World War II, the United States emerged as a global military and economic power, which strengthened the belief that American culture was no longer inferior.
Before 1929, the country experienced an economic boom. Business became the central activity of American life, and economic success was seen as the only true measure of achievement. Society shifted from rural, individualistic farming to urban, industrial, and commercial life. Consumerism expanded rapidly, and the stock market rose dramatically. Many ordinary people invested and became rich quickly during the Roaring Twenties, also known as the Jazz Age.
However, overproduction, excessive credit, and speculation led to the 1929 Stock Market Crash. The Great Depression of the 1930s brought unemployment, poverty, and widespread disillusionment. President Roosevelt’s New Deal attempted to restore economic stability through government intervention. Technological development transformed daily life. New household machines (refrigerators, washing machines, telephones) and new forms of entertainment became widely accessible, redefining luxury and social status. These technologies democratized leisure but also produced nostalgia for nature, leading to the creation of national parks and conservation societies.
Social Tensions and Cultural Shifts
The sociological atmosphere was marked by intolerance. After WWI, fear of foreign influence led to the First Red Scare and the Palmer Raids, targeting supposed radicals and communists. The trial and execution of Sacco and Vanzetti, despite a lack of evidence, reflected xenophobia. The National Origins Act (1924) imposed restrictive immigration quotas.
- Jim Crow laws: Enforced segregation in the South; in the North, segregation existed by custom.
- Scopes Monkey Trial: Banned the teaching of evolution in Tennessee.
- Prohibition (18th Amendment, 1919): Outlawed alcohol.
- 19th Amendment (1920): Granted women the right to vote.
- Great Migration: Brought African Americans to Northern cities, contributing to the Harlem Renaissance, a flourishing of Black culture.
The Rise of American Modernism
The Progressive Movement (1890–1920) fought corporate abuses and demanded reforms to protect workers and public welfare. Bohemian communities in New York and Chicago embraced artistic radicalism, rejecting the Genteel Tradition. The Armory Show (1913) introduced avant-garde art to America. After WWI, intellectuals felt alienated by political corruption and commercialism. Many artists believed social reform was impossible and withdrew from political engagement. The execution of Sacco and Vanzetti awakened some writers to activism. During the Depression, Marxist ideas gained influence, and literature became a tool for social critique. The New Deal encouraged documentary writing and renewed interest in American culture and common people.
American Modernism combined European avant-garde experimentation with a rediscovery of American tradition. Modernist writers emphasized the autonomy of art, rejecting the imitation of reality. They experimented with form, language, and structure, using fragmentation, discontinuity, and verbal precision to reflect the chaos of modern life. They felt displaced in a materialistic society and sought artistic freedom by expatriating to Europe or joining Bohemian circles. Modernist fiction often portrayed pessimistic, violent worlds with characters lacking confidence in themselves and their surroundings.
Literary Movements of the Early 20th Century
The Prewar Generation and Muckraking
The Prewar Generation rejected the Genteel Tradition and embraced European influences. Two groups emerged:
- Muckraking literature: Influenced by Naturalism, it exposed social injustices through journalistic realism. Works like Frank Norris’s The Octopus and Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle depicted exploitation and corruption.
- Avant-garde writers: Experimented with form, inspired by William James’s idea of consciousness as a fluid “stream.” They used techniques such as stream of consciousness, automatic writing, imagism, and word association.
Imagist poets rejected Victorian ornamentation, favoring concrete language and precise imagery. Some writers remained in the U.S., drawing on American vernacular; others expatriated to Europe, such as Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot.
The Lost Generation
The Lost Generation refers to writers disillusioned after WWI. They saw the world as chaotic and American society as puritanical and commercial. Feeling alienated, they separated literature from social and moral issues, depicting problems without proposing solutions. They emphasized aesthetic innovation, precision, and controlled language. Their fiction combined European and American material, using images of fragmentation, sterility, waste, and cultural emptiness. Key figures include F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and John Dos Passos.
Social Realism in the 1930s
In the 1930s, literature shifted toward socially engaged realism and naturalism. Influenced by Marxism, writers used fiction as a tool for social critique. Modernist experimentation weakened but did not disappear. Naturalistic techniques and muckraking methods returned to portray deprivation, poverty, and the struggles of marginalized groups. The New Deal encouraged documentary writing and renewed interest in American culture. The main author of this period is John Steinbeck, whose The Grapes of Wrath exemplifies socially conscious fiction.
F. Scott Fitzgerald and the Jazz Age
F. Scott Fitzgerald, born in 1896, embodied the tensions of the Jazz Age. He idealized wealth and romanticized love while feeling both attracted to and repelled by the society of privilege. After early success with This Side of Paradise, he lived a glamorous expatriate life in Paris with his wife Zelda. The 1920s expatriates were mostly middle-class Midwesterners who rejected American materialism and sought artistic freedom in Europe, especially in Paris’s Left Bank. Their lifestyle was hedonistic and irresponsible, marked by dissipation and escape from social obligations. Fitzgerald’s later years were marked by Zelda’s mental illness, his alcoholism, and financial decline. He died in 1940.
Analysis of Babylon Revisited
His story “Babylon Revisited” is autobiographical, contrasting the prosperity of 1925 with the ruin of 1930. The title evokes the rise and fall of Babylon, paralleling the protagonist Charles’s moral collapse and attempted redemption. The story reflects traditional American values of hard work and responsibility. Charles’s life follows four stages:
- Sin: Dissipation during the boom.
- Guilt: The crash and Helen’s illness.
- Penance: His sober present.
- Redemption: Postponed.
The contrast between Charles (responsible, disciplined, seeking Honoria—symbol of honor) and Charlie (irresponsible, drawn to excess) represents his inner conflict. Although he rejects his past, he remains unconsciously attracted to it, symbolized by his note to Duncan. His struggle between self-control and temptation reflects the moral ambiguity of the Jazz Age.