Modernist Literature: A Reaction to 20th-Century Crisis
Modernism: A Response to a Turbulent Century
Historical Context: The Crisis of Western Civilization
The 20th century was a turbulent age. With the rise of modern industry, the economy developed rapidly, but people were mentally dominated by panic and were not free. The alienation between individuals and nature, society, others, and even the self was magnified. In World War I, human beings used the weapons invented by science and technology to massacre their own kind, and the concepts of freedom, love, and humanity in Western society were ruined by war. Western civilization was thrown into a deep crisis, and the Modernist movement is the product of this age.
Defining the Modernist Movement
The Modernist movement, also known as Modernism, is generally considered the opposite of tradition and is often understood as an intense rejection of the past. There is an emphasis on the new and being avant-garde, and this quality can be found both stylistically and conceptually. Moreover, Modernism is considered a global movement rather than a nation-specific one.
Stylistic Innovations in Modernist Literature
The avant-garde nature of Modernist literature can be found in substantial stylistic breaks with previous modes of literary and aesthetic expression in various ways, including radical experimentation with:
- Language and form
- Modes of narration
- Disorganization
- Characterization
- Representation
Stream of Consciousness and the Unreliable Narrator
Modernist writers adapted the stream-of-consciousness 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 the actions of a character. It is distinguished from psychological novels because 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 an anti-hero protagonist, and he is also a first-person narrator.
Fragmented Narratives
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. This is also the reason why Snow Country is compared to the style of haiku, since the scenes are brief with crisp endings and provide ample imaginative space for readers.
Characterization Techniques
In Snow Country, Kawabata focuses on a “telling” rather than “showing” style of characterization. The characterization is rendered delicately; the characters seem to be flat or opaque at first glance since Kawabata removes the third-person perspective. Readers have to read carefully between the lines to perceive the characters’ quirks and sensitivities due to the unlabeled dialogues.
Poetic Form: Free Verse
In traditional poetry, rhyme is one of the constitutive factors, resulting when the vowel and the succeeding sounds are identical. However, Modernist poets abandoned traditional rhyme schemes and wrote in free verse. For example, Yeats’ “The Second Coming” is a rhymeless poem, as there is no end rhyme and no regular phonological rhythm, though it has a consistent meter. The blank verse of “The Second Coming” is used 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.
Conceptual Themes of Modernism
Conceptually, the avant-garde nature of Modernist works also has various aspects.
Social Disconnection and Alienation
The issue of social disconnection is a common theme. In Snow Country, Komako says:
“It’s very sad. We used to be able to work things out together, but now it’s every geisha for herself. The place has changed. New geishas come in and no one gets along with anyone else.”
Moreover, in The Wings, the narrator states that nobody he knows comes to the tea room, and this is a great discovery of his. Both scenarios are examples of social disconnection. In Snow Country, Shimamura is an urban settler in Tokyo, but he visits the snow country not just once, 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 the modern and the traditional.
Anxiety and Technological Fear
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 can still be harmful, which makes the narrator wonder if his wife wants to kill him gradually. This is an example of the anxiety associated with the medical world. In Snow Country, people gathering in a warehouse to watch a movie is supposed to be fun; however, the film catches fire, causing people to throw children 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, showing that modernity is incompatible with humanity. Komako states that people in Tokyo live in such noise and confusion that their feelings are broken into pieces, and this comment reveals the dehumanizing aspect of modernity that renders people against humanity.
Symbolism as a Vehicle for Meaning
The use of symbols can be found in Modernist texts. In “The Second Coming,” Yeats conveys his message indirectly. The ‘gyre’ symbolizes the collapse of authority and society, and the ‘falconer’ and ‘falcon’ symbolize human beings and technologies, respectively. The scene where the falcon can no longer hear the falconer expresses the idea that technology is advancing so fast that it is getting out of human control, and it also reveals fear and disgust of technology and a loss of faith in science and progress. The ‘sphinx’ is a symbol that represents the punishment of human beings who abandon their religion and return to God only when they are hopeless, and the ‘Blood-dimmed tide’ is a symbol for World War I.
Modernism as a Global Phenomenon
The Modernist movement should be seen as a global event rather than a nation-specific one for various reasons. To a certain extent, Modernism can be considered the result of the cultural exchanges between the East and the West when they reached a certain level. As early as 1922, British philosopher Bertrand Russell had already stated that exchanges between different cultures have been proven many times as a milestone in the development of human civilization. In this process, ancient Greece learned from ancient Egypt, ancient Rome drew on ancient Greece, and so on. Differences between cultures induce inspiration and creativity in people and hence lead to cultural innovation. Eastern and Western modernists influenced and learned from each other, making the Modernism movement a global phenomenon. The Japanese Empire is generally considered the center of modernity in East Asia in the early twentieth century, primarily because of its extended engagement with Western countries.