Losing a Lost Generation

World War I left an indelible mark on the destinies of many generations, changed the moral fabric of many countries and nationalities, but did not spare those lands that were far from the focus of hostilities. The war across the ocean shocked the younger generation of Americans with its thousands of deaths and horrific destruction, its senselessness, and the barbaric weapons that were used against all life. The postwar country they had once considered their home, a secure bastion built on a sense of patriotism and faith, collapsed like a house of cards. All that was left was a handful of young people, so unnecessary and fragmented, living aimlessly through their allotted days.

Such sentiments flooded many cultural aspects of life in the 1920s, including literature. Many writers realized that the old norms were no longer appropriate, and that the old criteria for writing had outlived themselves completely. They criticized the country and the government, having lost the remnants of hope in the war among other values, and ended up feeling lost themselves. Finding meaning in anything became an unsolvable problem for them.

The term lost generation

The term “lost generation” is by Gertrude Stein, an American modernist who lived in Paris. It is believed that a certain auto mechanic was extremely unhappy with his young assistant who was repairing Gertrude Stein’s car. In a moment of censure, he said the following: “You are all a lost generation,” thus explaining his assistant’s inability to do his job properly.

Ernest Hemingway, a close friend of Gertrude Stein, adopted this expression and included it in the epigraph of his novel Fiesta. In fact, the term lost generation refers to those young people who matured during World War I and were subsequently disillusioned with a postwar world that was so alien.

In terms of literature, the lost generation is a group of American writers, most of whom emigrated to Europe and worked there between the end of World War I and the Great Depression. As a result, America nurtured a generation of cynical people who could hardly imagine their future in this country. But what ultimately motivated them to move across the ocean? The answer is quite simple: many of these writers realized that their home and lives were unlikely to be restored, and that the United States they had known before had disappeared without a trace.

The bohemian way of life among intellectuals was much closer and more pleasant than a miserable existence in a society devoid of faith, and the existence of morality was highly questionable. Emigrant writers living in Europe thus wrote about the trials and tribulations of this most lost generation, being, most interestingly, an integral part of that generation.

Prominent figures of the lost generation

Among the most famous members of the lost generation are Ernest Hemingway, Scott Fitzgerald, John Dos Passos, Gertrude Stein and Thomas Eliot. These names are not limited to the whole list, we can also mention Sherwood Anderson and others who belong to the lost generation, but to a lesser extent than their comrades. To get a closer look at this phenomenon, let’s take a closer look at some of these writers.

Gertrude Stein was born and raised in the United States but moved to Paris in 1903. She was a great connoisseur and lover of painting and literature, considered by many (and herself personally) to be a true expert on the art. She began holding meetings at her home in Paris, mentoring young writers and critiquing their work. Contrary to her well-established authority among modernist figures, she was not one of the most influential writers of her time. At the same time, many writers considered it a great privilege to be part of her club.

Ernest Hemingway served as an ambulance driver on the Italian front during World War I, where he was wounded. He married and moved to Paris, where he soon became part of the expatriate community. For the most part, however, he is known for his unusual way of writing, being the first to depart from the standard norms of storytelling. Stingy with eloquence but adept at using dialogue, Hemingway made a deliberate choice to abandon the colors of speech that had dominated literature before him. Of course, his mentor was Gertrude Stein.

Scott Fitzgerald was a junior lieutenant; but strange as it may sound, he never served in a foreign country. On the contrary, he married a wealthy Alabama girl he had met during his service. As a writer, Fitzgerald was struck by America’s post-war culture, eventually becoming the foundation of his work that so attracted a new younger generation. Having achieved fame, he is constantly on the road between Europe and America and becomes an important part of the literary community led by Gertrude Stein and Ernest Hemingway. In many ways, Fitzgerald repeated the fate of the people described in his works: his life was filled with money, partying, aimlessness, and alcohol, which ruined the great writer. Hemingway, in his memoirs The Feast that is Always with You, speaks with incredible warmth of Fitzgerald’s writings, although it is known that at a certain period their friendship took on a tinge of hostility.

The figure of Erich Maria Remarque somewhat stands out against the background of the above figures. His story is distinguished by the fact that, as a German, he suffered the consequences of World War I, personally experiencing all the gravity and meaninglessness of the terrible events of those times. Remarque’s wartime experience is incomparable to any of the writers already mentioned, and his novels will forever remain the best illustration of anti-fascist literature. Persecuted in his homeland for his political views, Remarque was forced to emigrate, but this did not force him to abandon his language in a foreign land, where he continued to create.

Themes of the Lost Generation

The literary style of the writers of the lost generation is actually very individual, although commonalities can be seen in both content and form of expression. The hopeful and loving stories of the Victorian era are gone without a trace. The tone and mood of the writing has changed dramatically.

Now the reader can feel the cynicism of life through the text and the feelings that fill an unstructured world devoid of faith and purpose. The past, on the other hand, is painted in bright and happy colors, creating an almost perfect world. While the present looks like a kind of gray environment, devoid of tradition and faith, and everyone is trying to find their individuality in this new world.

Many writers, like Scott Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby, have illuminated the superficial aspects of life along with the underlying dark feelings of the younger generation. They are characterized by an often spoiled style of behavior, a materialistic outlook on life, and a complete lack of restraint and self-control. In Fitzgerald’s works, one can see how the writer criticizes the nature of this way of life, how excess and irresponsibility lead to destruction (an example of the novel The Night is Tender).

As a result, a sense of dissatisfaction with the traditional narrative model took hold of the entire literary community. Hemingway, for example, denied the need for descriptive prose to convey emotions and concepts. In support of this, he chose to write in a more complex and dry manner, placing great emphasis on dialogue and silence as meaningful techniques. Other writers, such as John Dos Passos, experimented with the introduction of stream-of-consciousness style paragraphs. Such writing techniques were used for the first time, largely as a reflection of the impact of World War I on the younger generation.

The themes of the First World War often find application in the works of writers of the lost generation who have been directly on the battlefields. Sometimes the work literally reflects the character of the war participant (e.g., Dos Passos’s Three Soldiers or Hemingway’s Farewell to Arms), or it conveys an abstract picture of what America and its citizens have become after the war (Thomas Eliot’s Barren Land or Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio). The action is often fraught with despair and inner doubts, with occasional sparks of hope from the main characters.

To summarize, the term lost generation refers to those young writers who matured during World War I, which thereby, directly or indirectly, influenced the formation of their creative ideals. Realizing that the United States could no longer be a reliable home as before, many of them moved to Europe, forming a literary community of expatriate writers led, albeit somewhat controversially, by Gertrude Stein. As something of a pinch from the past, their work is filled with heavy losses, and their main idea has become a critique of the materialism and immorality that flooded postwar America.

The innovation of the community formed was a break with traditional literary forms: many writers experimented with the structure of sentences, dialogues, and narrative in general. The fact that the writers of the lost generation were themselves part of the changes they were experiencing and the search for the meaning of life in their new world sets them apart qualitatively from many other literary movements. Having lost the meaning of life after the war and in a constant search for it, these writers gave the world unique masterpieces of the art of words, and we, in turn, can turn to their legacy and not repeat the mistakes of the past, because history is cyclical, and in such a volatile and changeable world we need to try to avoid becoming another lost generation.