The Age of Wonderful Nonsense; Its “Shallow” Flapper and the Other Side I of the Coin the Age of Wonderful Nonsense; Its “Shallow” Flapper and the Other Side I of the Coin
Milijana Ivo
Survey of American Literature II
Instructor: dr. sc. Biljana Oklopčić
May 4th, 2012
The Age of Wonderful Nonsense; its “Shallow” Flapper And the Other Side I of The Coin
Imagine you were a young woman in the 1920s. World War I is finally over, and you are lucky enough to have survived the horrors of the war, you returned home, live your life to the fullest. You are part of enormous social and economical changes; you gained the right to vote, you date, wear make-up, indulge in reckless parties, the consumer culture thrives; ideals and morals greatly shift. You are now able to dress, talk and walk like your male counterparts. You drive cars, smoke, and even drink in public. In other words, you are liberated in any possible way and part of a new rebellious generation. You are the so called Flapper of the Jazz Age.
Altogether, one might nowadays jump to the conclusion that it must have been an exciting, breathtaking, and thrilling time in history. Indeed, the two quintessential documents of the Roaring Twenties; F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, do show this incredible side of the period. However, they also bear witness to the fact that there is as well, another, more gloomy and dark side to it. There is more to this than meets the eye. The term the Lost Generation was coined in order to explain that it was more difficult than expected to return to normalcy. Moreover, the young men and women who experienced the war become morally lost and could no longer rely on tradition. They lived meaningless lives and the empty pursuit of pleasure was just an escape from reality. They were emotional cripples, who suffered trauma and were no longer able to trust, love or respect each other:
They found themselves
Survey of American Literature II
Instructor: dr. sc. Biljana Oklopčić
May 4th, 2012
The Age of Wonderful Nonsense; its “Shallow” Flapper And the Other Side I of The Coin
Imagine you were a young woman in the 1920s. World War I is finally over, and you are lucky enough to have survived the horrors of the war, you returned home, live your life to the fullest. You are part of enormous social and economical changes; you gained the right to vote, you date, wear make-up, indulge in reckless parties, the consumer culture thrives; ideals and morals greatly shift. You are now able to dress, talk and walk like your male counterparts. You drive cars, smoke, and even drink in public. In other words, you are liberated in any possible way and part of a new rebellious generation. You are the so called Flapper of the Jazz Age.
Altogether, one might nowadays jump to the conclusion that it must have been an exciting, breathtaking, and thrilling time in history. Indeed, the two quintessential documents of the Roaring Twenties; F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, do show this incredible side of the period. However, they also bear witness to the fact that there is as well, another, more gloomy and dark side to it. There is more to this than meets the eye. The term the Lost Generation was coined in order to explain that it was more difficult than expected to return to normalcy. Moreover, the young men and women who experienced the war become morally lost and could no longer rely on tradition. They lived meaningless lives and the empty pursuit of pleasure was just an escape from reality. They were emotional cripples, who suffered trauma and were no longer able to trust, love or respect each other:
They found themselves
Cited: Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: Charles Scribner 's Sons, 1953. Hemingway, Ernest. The Sun Also Rises. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1970. Frederick Lewis Allen. Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the Nineteen-Twenties. New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1931. 94. Spilka, Mark. “The Death of Love in The Sun Also Rises. Hemingway.” A Collection of Critical Essays. Ed. Robert P. Weeks. New York: Chelsea, 1987. 127-138. Fryer, Sarah Beebe. "Beneath the Mask: The Plight of Daisy Buchanan." Critical Essays on F. Scott Fitzgerald 's The Great Gatsby. Ed. Scott Donaldson. Boston: G.K. Hall, 1984. 153-166.