The Lost Generation

I have become obcessed and fascinated with what has come to be known as the "lost generation." I am taking an English class in the American novel, from 1914-1945 I think it is. And the so called "lost generation" were primiarly the Americans, those that had some personal experince with the war, WW1, and what the effects of the ward did to them. After the war was over, they felt all of thier old vaules, and what they once knew of the world was shattered. They had both inner as well as physcial scars. After the things they wittnissed, the things they lost, and the things they had to do, they felt as if morality had shattered around them, they became numb inside and no longer did anything truly mean anything anymore. As well, there was the difficulty in adjusting after the war, they could no longer return to and adapt to a normal life, in order to "feel" anything again, they needed that excitement, that adventure.

Many of them became what were known as ex-patriots because they stayed over in Europe and just wondered around aimlessly, they did not feel they could return home again after what they have been through. Many of them formed these little artists communities and became writers or painters, and it was from them that a lot of "mondenization" and exprirmental stuff began to explode.

For my Englist class we read The Sun Also Rises, though I had already read the book before, reading it again, and thinking about it on a deeper level, and discussing it, the book really came to have a strong impact upon me, when I thought of what the characters in the book really represented. As the story is about a group of this sort of lost generation. And thinking about the motives of the characters for why they truly are how they are. It really is a remarkable story but when it seeps in it is also terribly depressing. But it left a lasting impression upon me.

Then in my History class, I was reading about the new generation or Mexcian-Americans, the children of the Mexican immigrants, those that were born in the US with parents that came from Mexico, and it was around the same time as the war in the 1940's and the children of the immigrants, they formed there own little sub-culture which reminded me in a lot of ways of the lost generation and which I found to be quite interesting. They were called the Zoot-Suiters becasue they tended to dress in the popular fassion of the day, which many are familair with the old zoot sutis, and the 40's fasion, but with the new genration of Mexicans, they really exgerated the style to make it thier own and to stand apart from the others, and they reason they formed this little gang of theres was becasue they were trapped between two different worlds, neither of which excepted them. Becasue they did not have the old world vaules of thier parents they were disaproved of by the old generation, but becasue of prejudice and discrimination they were not embraced in the dominant Anglo culture either. So they created this little world of thier own where they could idenifty with each other and find some sort of unity.

5:50 PM - 11/1/2008 - post comment

For though All are not able to write books, all conceive themselves able to judge them. ~The Monk

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