How did the world between the wars change the way writers represented human experience?

Half-term unseen context research

The psychological and social consequences of war

1. Shell shock and trauma

2. Emotional divide between traumatised veterans and civilians

Literary impact: The psychological and social consequences of war

1. Writers abandoned omniscient, logical narrators. Shift to stream-of-consciousness to mimic traumatised mind

2. Intrusive memory: past trauma constantly invades present reality

(e.g. Septimus Warren Smith in Mrs. Dalloway)

Disillusionment with traditional beliefs, authority, and institutions

1. Disillusionment and the “Lost Generation”: young people were cynical and alienated from traditional morals. Collapse in belief of European progress, religion, and traditional values

Literary impact: Disillusionment with traditional beliefs, authority, and institutions

1. Disillusioned anti-hero protagonist: numb and detached, searching for identity in an unstable world

2. ‘Iceberg’ prose: stripped of decorative, romantic language.

(e.g. Ernest Hemingway The Sun Also Rises using simple prose)

Impact of loss, grief, trauma, and the experience of returning to civilian life

1. Normalisation and internalisation of violence: trenches desensitised men to industrial violence —> civilisation vs savagery

2. Demographic vacuum: war left millions of widows and single women alone

Literary Impact of loss, grief, trauma, and the experience of returning to civilian life

1. Shift towards brutal realism and psychological horror (e.g. All Quiet on the Western Front)

2. Immense loss representated throguh objects left behind rather than graphic depictions of death

(e.g. Virginia Woolf Jacob’s Room)

Modernity, industrialisation and technological developments

1. Industrialised warfare: industrial assembly lines and mechanisation could be used for mass destruction

2. Machine age: rise in automation (Fordism) and mechanisation

Literary Impact: Modernity, industrialisation and technological developments

1. Mechanised prose: abandoned lush, extravagant 19th century prose. Adopted sharp, rhythmic, machine-like language to capture speed and coldness of industrial life

(e.g D.H. Lawrence Women in Love: Gerald Crich viewing human beings as extensions of industrial machinery)

The growth of cities and changing experiences of urban life.

1. Urban Matrix: Mass migration into cities. Sensory overload.

2. Anonymity and isolation: cities brought millions together, simultaneously creating isolation and loneliness within the crows

Literary Impact:The growth of cities and changing experiences of urban life.

1. Montage and Juxtaposition: Layered unrelated snapshots of dialogue, street sounds, and internal thoughts to recreate frantic psychological experience of the city

(e.g. Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway uses London as a living organism: interconnected yet isolated internal lives of characters as they cross paths)

Consumerism, advertising, mass culture and new forms of entertainment.

1. Mass Culture: 1920s introduced modern mass media — cinema, jazz, radios, billboards

2. Psychological advertising: Selling consumer goods as shortcuts to happiness and identity

Literary Impact: Consumerism, advertising, mass culture and new forms of entertainment.

1. Saturated texts: authors wove real-world brance names, newspaper headlines, and adverising slogans to expose characters trying to build artificial identities out of purchased goods

(e.g F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby builds Jay Gatsby’s identity on consumerist excess: hollow nature of the manufactured American Dream)

The tension between excitement about modern life and anxiety about its consequences.

1. Euphoria of Speed: “Roaring Twenties” granted thrill surrounding social liberation, sexual freedom, and breaking free from rigid Victorian social constraints

2. Underlying Existential Dread: deep panic that civilisation had severed its roots beneath hedonism, mourning a stable past

Literary Impact:The tension between excitement about modern life and anxiety about its consequences.

1. Ambivalent Narrative Tones: fast rhythm vs dark imagery and moral ambiguity

The economic difficulties of the 1920s and 1930s, including the Great Depression.

1. The Wall Street Crash 1929: triggered the Great Depression, catastrophic global unemployment, bank failures, widespread poverty

2. New Face of Poverty: industries failed, millions of working-class families struggling for food

Literary Impact: The economic difficulties of the 1920s and 1930s, including the Great Depression.

1. Grim Social Realism: Abandoned superficial settings of early 1920’s, raw style to expose systemic failure and human suffering

(e.g John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath uses visceral prose)

Unemployment, poverty and social inequality.

1. Jobless Crisis: Unemployment rose to 20-25% and over 50% in heavy industrial and mining industries

2. Systemic degradation: Families forced to live in extreme, visible poverty, relying on soup kitchens and living in shantytowns

3. Widening inequality: collapse targeted lower-paid laborers, agricultural workers, and racial minorities. Severe wealth inequality, as the wealthy elite remained insulated.

Literary Impact: Unemployment, poverty and social inequality.

1. Extreme poverty: authors slowed prose to capture agonising and repetitive rhythm of wandering around for food

2. Devalued body: poverty strips characters of their dignity, identity, and agency

(e.g George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris)

The experiences of the working, middle and upper classes

1. Erosion of Upper-Class supremacy: high wartime casualties and taxation and destruction of agricultural wealth forced many aristocrats to sell off ancestral estates

2. Middle-Class precariousness: white-collar jobs expanded, but economic shocks of 1930s left them terrified of poverty

Literary Impact: The experiences of the working, middle and upper classes

1. Satire of Aristocratic Decay: depicted them as stagnant, obsolete, or absurd figures trapped ina dying world

(e.g Evelyn Waugh’s Vile Bodies)