MODERNITY THE 1920S AND THE AMERICAN DREAM

QUICK REVIEW OF ERAS… PURITAN/AGE OF REASON View of God: All Sovereign Man is depraved Predestination Pray for perfection Theocracy Man is good God in man

ROMANTICISM Man is divine God in nature Flaws are part of the whole Sublime is in nature “The spontaneous overflow of feelings”— Wordsworth Reaction to Industrial Revolution QUICK REVIEW OF ERAS…

REALISM “Objective reality” Showing the ugly side of life Especially concerned with lower/poor classes Reaction to Romanticism Focus on the self

MODERNISM (THIS IS THE ONE WE'RE STUDYING RIGHT NOW!) Stream-of-consciousness writing style Playing with form and style Events may not take place in chronological order This more closely matches the way we think, in a more “moment to moment” style Reaction to the horrors of WWI Common themes of disillusionment, isolation, inability to find oneself Focuses on the death of the American Dream Concerned with urbanization, rather than wilderness

A ROSE FOR EMILY: A MODERNIST WORK Summary Section 1: The story begins by recalling Emily Grierson’s death and her funeral. When her father was alive, the mayor suspended her tax payments, but now the new officials have come to collect her taxes. Section 2: describes the loss of Emily’s father and the abandonment by the man she was to marry. The townspeople pitied her and recalled how her aunt was insane, but they also think that the Grierson’s think too highly of themselves.

A ROSE FOR EMILY: A MODERNIST WORK Summary Section 3: After her father’s death, Emily grows ill. She meets a man named Homer and spends time with him, which makes the townspeople feel more pity for her. Her reputation suffers more when she buys rat poison for some mysterious reason. Section 4: Homer is seen entering Emily’s home, but is never seen leaving. No one ever sees Emily leaving, either. Section 5: After Emily’s funeral, they open the top room of her home to find Homer’s decaying body laying on the bed, as well as indentations on the pillow next to him and a long gray hair, indicating that Emily had been sleeping next to his dead body.

A ROSE FOR EMILY: A MODERNIST WORK Forces the reader to piece together information Events to do not take place in chronological order Starts with Emily’s death, then moves back in time Emily’s home as a symbolic representation of the American Dream Starts off as a beautiful home, but is decaying and rotting by the end Section 3 discusses how the town has contracts with the north to pave the roads and build Urbanization and rejection of nature Emily is isolated from society