The Lost Generation, Found
As a high school teacher in the twenty-first century, I often shake my
head at my students and wonder if there is any hope for this generation. They cannot see because their faces are
buried in their cellphones, watching videos clips of the latest brawl on You
Tube ; they cannot hear because their headphones are glued to their ears,
filling their minds with lyrics about drugs, sex, and material possessions. As musician Jack White once said, “this
generation is so dead” (Eells).
Jack White even wrote a song, This
Protector, about being a guardian of tradition against the effects of modern
progress. The same sentiments were
uttered almost one hundred years ago when Gertrude Stein said to Ernest
Hemingway, “you are all a lost generation” (Moveable Feast 37). This term was used to describe a disillusioned
generation that was considered to have strayed from a “traditional” value
system in favor of an aimless, self-indulgent lifestyle. On the contrary, it is my belief that the
writers of the lost generation were not valueless and empty as once described. Through their innovative thinking and their
creative works, the lost generation found a sense of identity and purpose of
their own.
The lost generation is a term used to describe the group of young
individuals who came to age after World War I.
More specifically, it described the American expatriates and members of
the literary community that settled in France along and around the Left Bank
Paris. The term was first introduced in
Ernest Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast
when Ernest Hemingway recounted an exchange between Gertrude Stein and a
mechanic at an auto garage. When Stein’s
car was not repaired in a satisfactory manor, the manager of the shop scolded
the ex-soldier by saying, “you are all a generation perdue,” perdue being the French equivalent of the English word
lost (Moveable Feast 38). Gertrude Stein continued the sentiment by
saying to Hemingway, “All of you young people who served in the war, You are a
lost generation…you have no respect for anything. You drink yourselves to death” (Moveable Feast 39). The term was not just a commentary on the
insolence or the recklessness of the post-war generation; instead, “The
generation was ‘lost’ in the sense that its inherited values were no longer
relevant in the postwar world and because of its spiritual alienation from a
U.S.” (Lost Generation).
From the outside looking in, this generation had gone astray by
blatantly disregarding tradition, morals, and ideals that were the cornerstone
of American culture. However, the
artists of the lost generation did not look from the outside in; they dared to
see the world from the inside out. That
is, they dared to see the world from a different perspective, one that was
uniquely their own. So while some may
argue that this generation was “lost” because they veered from tradition, I
argue that they were found because they made their own way. Through an analysis of the works of three
writers who embraced the term, Nancy Cunard, Zelda Fitzgerald, and Ernest
Hemingway, I will demonstrate that the lost generation should be viewed as a
group of visionaries, rather than a group who had lost sight of what was
important.
Even before being a visionary in her writing, Nancy Cunard was a visionary
in her personal life. In 1896, Nancy
Clara Cunard was born into a life of wealth, privilege, and luxury as part of
the British aristocracy. Her great
grandfather, Samuel Cunard, was the founder of the renowned Cunard shipping
line which her father, Sir Bache Cunard, eventually owned. Her mother, Maude Cunard (later known as Lady
Cunard), had the reputation of being one who had an affinity for hosting and
socializing, and who had a keen interest in both the arts and the artists. Being a carrier of a surname that possessed
great social standing and prestige, it was assumed that Cunard was to behave
within the confines of a specific aristocratic code of conduct. As a young lady, Cunard was expected to
follow the Victorian values that placed women in their own sphere of marriage,
domestic life, and childbearing. However,
from an early age, Cunard questioned the narrow guidelines that determined how
a young lady should or should not behave.
Her primary source of knowledge, her parents, were not only absent
often, but they were both known to be emotionally abusive and unfaithful. “She was expected to obey strict rules and
prohibitions, while her father passively watched her mother break the most
elemental bonds of married life—mutual trust and respect” (Gordon 1). From a very young age, Cunard questioned the
values and traditions that were to guide her youth.
At the age when young society women were “coming out” and presenting
themselves as viable marriage candidates, Cunard was rebelling in the artistic
communities of London. In the mid 1920s,
Cunard “plunged into the bohemian life of London…Intellectually and creatively
nurtured by the distinguished artists she met, she was also bolstered by her
friends…to rebel against convention and authority. She seemed to have found satisfaction in her
new independence” (Gordon 51). It was
during this time that Cunard forged her own way (perhaps not financially) and experimented
to discover, for herself, what it meant to be young, artistic, sexual, and a
woman. In 1920, Cunard leaves London for
Paris, where she believed her artistic thirst could be better satisfied. Here, she enmeshes herself in the Left Bank
community, surrounding herself with likeminded young innovators in the artistic
community. Cunard’s mother feared that
her daughter’s lifestyle was aimless and lacking in morality, and she often
told Nancy that she would amount to nothing.
The outside world considered Cunard to be lost: lacking direction,
lacking values, and defiant in the face of tradition. However, none of this would deter Cunard who
was beginning to find herself through the nurturing and creative environment of
the Left Bank.
Cunard would become a staple in the Left Bank scene of innovators,
befriending and romancing artists such as T.S. Elliot, Pablo Neruda, and Samuel
Beckett. During the 1920s and 1930s,
Cunard tirelessly published poetry, wrote political pamphlets, and even opened
and ran a printing press known as The Hours.
Despite her celebrity and despite her passion, Cunard can be described
as, “one of the biggest stars you've never heard of” ( Weber). Despite her earnest attempts, Cunard’s peers
(and most scholars thereafter) never recognized her as a successful poet. In 1921, she published her first collection
entitled Outlaws which was met with
little enthusiasm. In the introduction
to Poems of Nancy Cunard, John Lucas
writes that though Cunard had an “original” mind, her verse was “for the most
part inept where not downright bad” (12).
In 1923 she published Sublunary,
which John Lucas suggests shows that she did not take her peers’ advice to
“work on her craft” (13). In 1925, she
published Parallax, which once again was met with criticisms of Cunard’s
ability and skill as a poet. Despite her
frustrations at being recognized more for her aesthetic appeal than her poetry,
Cunard refused to stop writing because it was through her writing that she was
able to become self-aware, in spite of her successes or her failures. Cunard refused to succumb “to the inertia of
the staid” or give “into the cultural entropy that she saw could envelope those
once young and wild at heart” (“Unit 3”).
There is no doubt that Cunard questioned her ability and her place in
the world; but she questioned, and that is more than can be said for many of
her aristocratic equals. While some may
view this as Cunard going astray or losing her way, I applaud her tenacity and
fearlessness in the face of discovery.
One may be tempted to write Cunard off as not only a bad poet, but also
as a “spoiled little rich girl” who made much ado about rather trivial
matters. However, Cunard proved herself
to be an adept journalist with a revolutionary view on many topics. What’s more, the issues that Cunard supported
seemed to add the importance and necessity to her life which she often
questioned in her poetry. In the early 1930s,
she met Henry Crowder, an African-American Jazz musician from Harlem, and over
the next few years they became both lovers and collaborators. It is her relationship with Crowder that brought
to light not only the art of the Harlem Renaissance, but also the social issues
and injustices at the heart of the movement.
Not only was it the bigotry and racial inequalities that resonated with Cunard,
but it was the sense of forceful coercion (of which Cunard was also once a
victim) that caused Cunard to truly sympathize with the movement and its
supporters. In 1931 she penned the
anti-racist essay Black Man and White
Ladyship, which tells the story of her mother’s (referred to as Ladyship)
disbelief and shame surrounding her daughter’s interracial dealings. She suggests that both her mother’s American
upbringing and her aristocratic standing led to her bigotry stating, “Her
Ladyship’s own snobbery is quite simple.
If a thing is done she will,
with a few negligible exceptions, do it too.
And the last person she has talked to is generally right, providing he
is someone” (Cunard 186). This is an example of how conformity, under
the guise of tradition, leads to a thoughtless and unexamined existence, a life
which Cunard refused to live. Many mistook her questioning nature for purposelessness,
but even if Cunard left this world with questions unanswered, she refused
tradition and instead created her own rules.
It was through her continued self-examination and outpouring of work
that led me to view Cunard as not one who is lost, but one who has been found.
Another local celebrity on the Left Bank Paris, by way of her husband F.
Scott Fitzgerald, was Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald who is described as “a complete
mixture of Southern belle, Jazz Age wild child, wife, mother, and seriously
ambitious artist” (Gray). Unlike Cunard,
Zelda grew up in America and was accepting of the traditional values that were inherited. Born to a well-off family, much of Zelda’s
time was spent at country club events and ballet recitals where she was often
the most sought after Southern belle in Montgomery. Despite the fact that Zelda was very talented
and intelligent, like many other young women in the early 1900s, Zelda’s main
purpose in life was to find a suitable mate, particularly one who could support
her and provide her with a life of luxury and comfort. From an early age, Zelda felt that marriage,
children, and stability were the key to a happy life. It was these ideals that caused Zelda to overlook
the advances of Scott Fitzgerald, who at the time was nothing more than an Army
second lieutenant with no wealth and no prospect for success. However, after the success of Scott’s first
novel This Side of Paradise in 1920,
Zelda had a change of heart and the pair married in New York. Scott’s success was immediate, and the couple
gained notoriety as the “golden couple”, living a life of fame, fortune, and
fun (Gray). In 1922, Scott published The Beautiful and the Damned and further
solidified himself as a literary celebrity.
Though this was the type of life that Zelda had always been taught to
desire, there was a dissatisfaction growing within her. Zelda, who was used to being in the spotlight
on her own accord, was now forced into the shadows of her husband’s fame and
talent. A gifted writer in her own
right, there is often more debate over the extent to which Zelda played a role
in Scott’s writing, than there is attention paid to Zelda’s solo works. In 1925, bolstered by wealth and success, the
couple moved to Paris where the Jazz Age was in full swing and where their fame
had preceded them. By this time, the
envy, resentment, and frustrations of being overlooked and unappreciated had caused
a rift in the Fitzgerald’s’ marriage. To
make matters worse, Zelda was often
portrayed in the media as unruly, insane, and a detriment to Scott’s fragile
character, thanks in part to Ernest Hemingway. Despite the fact that Zelda was
living the life that she had been taught to desire (she had a successful
husband, a beautiful child, and financial security), she often felt oppressed,
confined, and coerced into a life where she had no voice and no audience. Clay argues that, “she seems undone by having
no solid foundation to hold onto” (3).
At this juncture in her life, Zelda is indeed lost.
The Fitzgerald’s continued to
live a transient life, going from Paris to Hollywood, and eventually to
Philadelphia, all the while carrying with them the baggage of their strained
and tumultuous relationship. However, Zelda began to crave a life and an identity
of her own and on her own terms. It is
because of this desire that Zelda began to experiment with creative outputs
like painting, writing and ballet in an attempt to find her voice. At the age of twenty seven, Zelda returned to
the ballet world where, despite her late age, she became a success. Zelda became engrossed in the world of dance,
committing to the craft so much so that both her doctors and her husband
labeled it an “obsession”. However, Clay
discusses the theory that Zelda’s passion was an attempt at individuality,
stating, “Zelda’s commitment to dancing had more to do with Zelda’s desire to
become independent of Scott and his need to control her” (3). Zelda no longer wished to be confined by the
limits proposed by the traditional label of “wife”. Zelda craved individuality, and it was
through ballet and the control of her own body that she was able to achieve
this.
Despite her success as a dancer, Zelda’s mental and emotional state was
fragile, with her behavior becoming more and more erratic, unpredictable, and
strange. No one truly knows the extent
of her illness (she was diagnosed as schizophrenic though people argue that she
was more likely manic-depressive), but in 1932 Zelda was hospitalized at the
psychiatric clinic at Johns Hopkins. Ever
the fighter, it is during this six week stay that Zelda wrote her first and
only novel, Save Me the Waltz. Not only does Zelda complete her first novel,
but she also submits it to Scribners publishing, without Scott’s
knowledge. For Zelda, “art constituted a
viable attempt to break free of the roles in which she was cast” (4). This was Zelda’s last ditch effort to
establish herself as both an artist and an individual detached from her title
as the wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Despite
the poor sales and reception of the novel, Zelda should be considered an
innovator who had the courage to break from tradition for the sake of her happiness
and sanity. Zelda continued to suffer
with mental illness until her death in 1948, but she should be remembered more for
her literal and figurative attempt at telling the story in her own words.
Finally, it seems necessary to discuss the man to whom the term “lost
generation” was directly addressed: Ernest Miller Hemingway. Ernest Hemingway was born on July 21, 1891 in
Cicero (now Oak Park), Illinois. From
what is known about Hemingway’s past, it appears that he had a very traditional
upbringing, being raised in an upper-middle class conservative family in the
suburbs. Bound by his upbringing,
Hemingway was expected to adhere to the “norms” for young men of his day: to go
to school with the hopes of obtaining an education and securing a job for his
future wife and kids. Hemingway could
not stand to “think [his] life [was] going so fast and [he was] not really
living it,” a sentiment he would later pen in The Sun Also Rises (Hemingway 18).
So at just eighteen years old, Hemingway opted to relocate to Kansas City
where he looked to fulfill his need for travel and adventure. It was here that he attempted to join the
military, but because of an eye condition, volunteered to drive ambulances for
the Red Cross as the next best option.
At this time, Hemingway was wide-eyed with excitement at the opportunity
to see all that the world had to offer.
However, the realities of war and mortality set in when Hemingway
sustained a serious leg injury when his trench was bombed just a month into his
deployment. After a lengthy recovery in
Milan, a return to the states, and a swift marriage, the enchantment of the
world seemed to grow dimmer and dimmer for Hemingway who felt restrained by his
life in Illinois. Luckily for Hemingway,
he received an employment opportunity that afforded him the chance to travel to
Paris as a correspondent for a newspaper, and in 1921 he and his wife Hadley boarded
a ship bound for Paris. This transient
lifestyle and constant quest for adventure was in direct contrast to the
traditional conservative lifestyle that was expected of him. Many viewed his defiance towards tradition as
a lack of respect, and as a sign of one with no direction in life; but never
one for conformity, Hemingway was determined to make his own rules, not only as
it pertained to his life, but also as it pertained to his literature.
In 1924 Hemingway published in our
time, a collection of vignettes, and received little attention until F.
Scott Fitzgerald wrote a review praising Hemingway’s work. Hemingway was now in a prime position within
the literary community to publish his first full novel The Sun Also Rises which was released in 1926 to immediate praise
and fanfare. The Sun Also Rises was considered to be a ground-breaking novel
that presented a style quiet different from many of his counterparts. Many of the other authors and poets had a
style that was heavy-handed, wordy, and laced with imagery and poetic
flourishes. Hemingway instead used his
journalism skills to create a style that was simple and purposeful in both
diction and syntax. Readers would come
to know Hemingway for his distinctive style, allowing Hemingway to find a sense
of identity through his writing. His
style can be described in three different manners, all of which point to his
simplistic and disciplined style:
First, short and simple sentence constructions, with heavy use of
parallelism, which convey the effect of control, terseness, and blunt honesty;
second, purged diction which above all eschews the use of bookish, latinate, or
abstract words and thus achieves the effect of being heard or spoken or
transcribed from reality rather than appearing as a construct of the
imagination (in brief, verisimilitude); and third, skillful use of repetition
and a kind of verbal counterpoint, which operate either by pairing or juxtaposing
opposites, or else by running the same word or phrase through a series of
shifting meanings and inflections. (Poetry Foundation)
This can be
seen in a seen in The Sun Also Rises
where the narrator Jake describes the weather in Pamplona:
In the morning it was raining. A
fog had come over the mountains from the sea.
You could not see the tops of the mountains. The plateau was dull and gloomy, and the
shapes of the trees and the houses were changed. I walked out beyond the town to look at the
weather. The bad weather was coming in over
the mountains from the sea. (Hemingway 136)
This passage
perfectly demonstrates Hemingway’s individuality and innovative style. Firstly, though the sentences seem
simplistic, there is a discipline in the abruptness of his sentences. Secondly, his omission of abstract words
gives the reader the impression that Jake is reciting this information from
reality versus imagination. Lastly, the
use of repetition in the recounting of the weather sets up a juxtaposition
between the certainty of the weather and the frenzied events taking place in Pamplona. Hemingway’s style was purposeful and
innovative because like Cunard and Zelda, Hemingway was searching for a way to avoid
conformity and find a voice for himself through his writing.
Hemingway’s style was always consistent, remaining the same from his
first novel to his last. Between the release of The Sun Also Rises in 1926 and Hemingway’s death in 1961, Hemingway
experienced many successes and failures, including publication of more novels
and collections, a divorce and subsequent marriage, a battle with alcoholism,
and bouts with mental illness. But shortly
before his suicide in 1961, Hemingway penned his memoir, A Moveable Feast, inspired by the rediscovery of relics from
his younger years in Paris, the years which can be described as “ young and wild and hungry and happy
years with Hadley—truly, as he acknowledges, the best years of his life” (“Unit
5”). A
Moveable Feast is the culmination of a life fully lived and a life fully
realized. In particular, it is a
reminder of how Hemingway veered from tradition in both style and meaning. Hemingway directly describes his writing
process stating:
If I started to write elaborately, or like someone introducing or
presenting something, I found that I could cut that scrollwork or ornament out
and throw it away and start with the first true simple declarative sentence I
had written.... I decided that I would write one story about each thing that I
knew about. I was trying to do this all the time I was writing, and it was good
and severe discipline. (Hemingway 19)
Hemingway
describes how he purposefully crafted his writing to be simple yet
sophisticated. For Hemingway, it was an
attempt at creating an individual style in order to avoid following the status
quo. His discipline, purposefulness, and
self-awareness are in direct opposition to the term “lost generation”.
Aside from his style, Hemingway also
attempted to find himself through the themes in his works. For Hemingway, “His writing was his way of
approaching his identity—of discovering himself in the projected metaphors of
his experience. He believed that if he could see himself clear and whole, his
vision might be useful to others who also lived in this world.” (Poetry
Foundation). Through A Moveable Feast, Hemingway attempts
self-discovery with the intent being to allow his readers to view not only the
events of his life, but also to view who he was as an individual. This can be seen when Hemingway described his
though process during the times when he experienced difficulty writing:
I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, 'Do not
worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to
do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.' So
finally I would write one true sentence, and then go on from there. It was easy
then because there was always one true sentence that I knew or had seen or had
heard someone say (Hemingway 18)
Hemingway’s
writing was an attempt at self-discovery through the truth that was all around
him. By tearing down and building up the
intricacies of his existence, Hemingway found a way to define what was true for
him. This is once again an example of
how he refused to accept what was common belief and instead created meaning
through self-discovery and art. Ernest Hemingway
continued to make his own rules to the very end. Feeling that he had had his fill of the
world, Hemingway chose to exit on July 2, 1961.
An associate of mine once said that every
generation believes that the following generation has experienced a decline in
values, morals, intelligence, or respect.
My mother used to say, “children these days” while shaking her head in
disbelief, in much the same way that I do today. People are often too quick to label
individuals as “trouble-makers” or to write off an entire generation because
they choose to do things in a different manner.
The Lost Generation was a group that was unfairly labeled because of
their deliberate attempts at individuality.
Cunard, Zelda, and Hemingway were only a few of the artists on the Left
Bank who believed a traditional life meant a life of oppression and conformity;
they instead found their own truth by finding individuality through art. Therefore, before one chooses to label a
generation as “dead” or “lost”, one should instead try to see them as
innovators. There is much to be seen
from those who choose to walk a different path.
Works Cited
Cunard,
Nancy. Essays on Race and Empire. Ed.
Maureen Moynagh. Ontario: Broadview literary
texts, 2002. Print.
Eells, Josh.
“Jack Outside the Box.” The New York
Times Magazine. The New York Times, 5 April
2012. Web. 21 April 2015.
“Ernest
Hemingway.” The Poetry Foundation.
Poetry Magazine, n.d. Web. 5 May 2015.
Gordon, Lois.
Nancy Cunard Heiress, Muse, Political
Idealist. New York: Columbia University Press,
2007. Print.
Gray, Nancy.
“Zelda comes into her own.” Rev. of Zelda
Fitzgerald: Her Voice in Paradise, Sally
Cline. The Women’s Review of Books
Oct 2003: 2. Print.
Hemingway,
Ernest. A Moveable Feast. New York:
Scribner, 1964. PDF.
Hemingway,
Ernest. The Sun Also Rises. New York:
Scribner, 1926. Print.
Loots,
Christopher. Unit 3 Lecture: Cunard:
These Were the Hours. Retrieved from Lecture Notes
Loots,
Christopher. Unit 5 Lecture: Hemingway.
Retrieved from Lecture Notes
“Lost
Generation.” Encyclopedia Britannica.
Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 19 Aug 2014. Web. 22
April 2015.
Lucas, John,
ed. Poems of Nancy Cunard.
Nottingham: Trent Editions, 2005. PDF.
Weber,
Caroline. “Nancy Cunard: A troubled heiress with an ideological mission.” The New York
Times. 30 March 2007. Web. 20 April 2015.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/29/arts/29iht-IDSIDE31.1.5071488.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0>.
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