ColleenD+LostGen

//Colleen DellaPorta//
 * Characteristics and Members of the Lost Generation**

The "Lost Generation" is a term coined by Gertrude Stein, in conversation to Ernest Hemingway. Coming out of the war period, we have a rather clear picture as to what "Lost Generation" could mean. On face value, we have a group of people who are forlorn and without hope. And why should they have hope? World War I was brutal–many people died and those who came home were baffled, astonished and jaded by the war. Friends, family members and other men of families died. Young, old, it didn’t matter. Maybe death was the merciful way out. Of those who came home, some were injured physically or mentally. Sometimes both. The batch of years that describe this time period and these people are post World War I until the beginning of the Great Depression. It’s hard to imagine that a supposedly flourishing time, the Roaring 20s’, could have such a large amount of disillusioned people fleeing from the United States and seeking refuge in the arms of other countries, new homes that cannot embrace them as tightly as home once did.

Some of the characteristics of the Lost Generation are that one, they were a group of American authors who fled the United states when the ripple effects of the war began. They mostly congregated around Paris and were known as "young modernists." These people searched for the meaning of life... and ended up drinking themselves silly while in their depression. They had love affairs, love triangles and sordid moments left and right. These people felt emotionally barren–like they didn’t matter. Like the war had drained them of everything they could ever have. They felt soulless and yearned to find some sort of meaning, something to give their lives light once more. It didn’t help that people, like Hemingway for example, had problems even before the war. (http://1920sgirls.tripod.com/lostgeneration.html)

The authors of the Lost Generation have distinct and common themes of their novels, which includes the rejection of modern materialism or the presentation of materialism, the excessive use of alcohol, young War-aged protagonists, failed love affairs, obsessions, a lack of communication on one, more or all parts of the novel, writing and poetry expressing despair and the breaking of old molds authors of the past once used. Racism appears in these works along with the use of racial slurs. Blatant hate, cold blooded murder, death of protagonists, flawed, fractured people. All of these backwards ideals make an even more fractured work. Sometimes, we like these characters. Sometimes, we can’t stand them. The unreliable narrator is also used–someone who we think and know lies and puts on false pretenses.

Many names we know nowadays–famous names–were part of the Lost Generation. Notably, the two presidents of the United States during this time were Dwight D. Eisenhower and Harry S. Truman. Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sherwood Anderson and John Steinbeck were the big name authors who were part of this generation. Others included Hart Crane, Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, Gertrude Stein, Cole Porter, e.e cummings, William Faulkner, Thornton Wilder, Thomas Wolfe, and James Joyce.

Sources/Pages Looked At: "The Lost Generation." Wikipedia. Wikipedia. 02 Mar. 2006 . [|__http://1920sgirls.tripod.com/lostgeneration.html__] [|__http://www.answers.com/topic/lost-generation__] [|__http://beta.essortment.com/24835-lost-generation.html__]