...Slipping Into Insanity A time of individuality and rebellion made a mark in the world of literature, and modernist writers weren’t afraid to break away from the norm. The Bell Jar, written by Sylvia Plath, is an outstanding novel which depicts the modernist era as a whole. Sylvia Plath takes her readers through the mind of a young girl in her twenties, Esther, whose stability and sanity slowly start to slip away. Esther’s trouble starts within her mind but become magnified when external factors start to interfere. She disconnects herself from society and as her mind regresses; her hope of reaching sanity starts to diminish as well. Throughout the novel, Esther struggles with finding herself in a society filled with uncertainty. Sylvia Plath was able to create the perfect character to reveal her attitude towards new modernist view through her literary techniques, symbolism, and was able to intertwine reality with lunacy, creating the perfect modernist piece of literature. The modern era was composed of many elements in which authors incorporated a variety of literary techniques. The use of stream of consciousness, juxtaposition of ideas, staccato sentences, and symbolism was what led the modern era to success. The shifting outlook authors had during this era was like a chain reaction, and writers began to utilize these techniques to create a novel which was considered to be taboo. Sylvia Plath uses many symbols throughout The Bell Jar to represent various...
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...truths. The post-modernists further shed light on the changes in society from the industrial era or the modern age to the now post modern age. Much of the post-modern perspective is about how it is almost impossible to scientifically analyze the industrial world...
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...Humanity is forever changing, growing and transforming, and so is the concept of modernism. It was only in the latter half of the nineteenth century, namely, when society first witnessed or gave theory to this multifaceted change. Multifaceted because it effected a diverse range of innovative and experimental practices in the visual arts, literature, design and architecture. New genres and styles were being invented and combined to push preconceived ideas and traditions. As society started to accept these changes, the world saw a rapid growth in urbanisation and industrialisation. In fact Wallace. J, wrote ‘ in examine the spaces of modernism, the city is an almost obligatory starting point’ (2011). The many new technologies that were were being invented during the early 20th Century increased the development and manufacturing of cities sevenfold. Changing cities meant changing cultures. People were living like never before. The modern city was a exceptional space for its facilitation of new forms of culture. After the second world war, the art world witnessed the styles and creative practices of European culture shift to America. American modernism like modernism in most areas of the world is a trend of thought that humans have the power to create, shape and improve their environment. Foster, .R did state ‘What distinguishes American modernism is the unifying theme of a conscious search for identity” (2003). Meaning artists and architectures searched for what it meant to...
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...with what we perceived reality to be. Our assumption will decide on the subjects to be treated as real while disregarding others. These assumptions on whether or not a particular phenomenon exists or if it is just an illusion stirs debates between those who have conflicting perspectives. On the other hand, epistemology is concerned with knowledge that we are able to attain. The answers an epistemologist would want to derive from are are: how we as humans obtain the knowledge, how we differentiate between knowledge that is good and bad and how reality should be explained. Epistemology is directly linked to ontology as the answers derived from these questions are dependent on the ontology perceptions of what they deem reality to be. To a modernist, ontology is described as objectivism- The belief that existence of reality depends on those who are living in it. People respond to their...
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...father. His childhood was not at all happy; he describes this period of his life as "…something associated with violence, cruelty, evil across the way". Graham often skipped classes in order to avoid the constant bullying by his fellow classmates. At one point Greene even ran away from home. When Greene began suffering from mental and emotional problems, his parents sent him to London for psychotherapy by a student of the famous Sigmund Freud (1856–1939). Greene actually found the psychoanalysis to be very interesting and remained fascinated by dreams for the rest of his life. While he was living there, Greene developed his love for literature and began to write poetry. In 1922 Greene became a student of Balliol College, Oxford. At the age of twenty-two he became sub-editor on the staff of a newspaper The Nottingham Guardian. It was during this period that his first novel, “The Man Within", was written. As an undergraduate at Oxford College, Greene studied modern history. In 1925, he published his first book, a collection of sentimental poetry called "Babbling April". After graduating, Greene worked as a journalist in Nottingham and in 1926, he converted to Roman Catholicism. Greene married Vivien Dayrell-Browning in 1927 and they had two...
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...Two Humans (1927) was added to the National Film Registry of the United States Library of Congress for films deemed culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant. When you look at the film in the context of the 1920’s, it is possible to see why it has been considered so significant. In the US, the 1920’s were the beginnings of the modernist movement. The younger generation began a new age of art, music, and fashion, as well as a new set of values and cultural behaviors. Young people were attracted to the fast-paced and independent lifestyle of the city, and women especially became more attracted to that idea of independence. As many people joined the modernist movement, others resisted it just as much. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans is a film that deals very much with the struggle between modernist and anti-modernist values, represented by The Man’s (George O’Brien) struggle over his choice between The Woman from The City (Margaret Livingston), and his wife (Janet Gaynor). The way in which this struggle presents itself, however, is pretty problematic; after a bit of thought, it is fairly obvious that the film condemns the modernist lifestyle, including the independence that women were developing. This much becomes evident to some people, but even then, very few people have fully realized the values that Sunrise is promoting, due to the excessive tenderness and emotion of the film, in the themes of forgiveness and rekindled affection. Thus, Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans...
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...Chapter 24 Lecture Notes The ideas of reason and science: -They thought that they could use reason to understand the universe -The new ideas challenged the old ideas -Science is important hard facts and cold reason -Gives people certainty -Changes peoples ideas (New Physics) -“Matter is made up of solid particles called atoms” -Discovered radion – radiation – Eurys -It came from within the atoms -Max Planck – understands the atom deeply -Heat causes energy -Its not steady, its given off in packets called quanta -Einstein – Thermodynamics – space and time are absolute – they are relative to the observer -The 1920s is called the “Heroic Age of Physics” -Towards a new understanding of the irrational -Nietzsche – believed that there was no cultural creativity -Because reason was so important people forgot about emotion, passion, and instincts -Humans were at the mercy of irrational forces -He was against Christianity “God is Dead” -There were superior intellectuals that could free themselves from the conforms of thinking and therefore lead – “Superman” -He was anti-democracy, social reform and universal suffrage Neutrality: -Soreell combines Burgson’s ideas and Nietzsche to create a revolutionary reform led by an elite ruling body -Sigmund Freud – psychoanalysis -Human behavior was influenced by unconsciousness of previous experiences, repressed, and will come out in later behavior Social Darwinism: -Because of the...
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...(1932-1933), and the Art Students League (1933-1934). He was one of the originators of the Swiss Style of graphic design. From 1956 to 1969, and beginning again in 1974, Rand taught design at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Rand was inducted into the New York Art Directors Club Hall of Fame in 1972. He designed many posters and corporate identities, including the logos for IBM, UPS and ABC. Rand died of cancer in 1996. Early life and education Peretz Rosenbaum was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1914. As Orthodox Jewish law forbids the creation of graven images that can be worshiped as idols, Rand’s career creating icons venerated in the temple of global capitalism seemed as unlikely as any. It was one that he embraced at a very young age, painting signs for his father’s grocery store as well as for school events at P.S. 109. Rand’s father did not believe art could provide his son with a sufficient livelihood, and so he required Paul to attend Manhattan’s Harren High School while taking night classes at the Pratt Institute, though “neither of these schools offered Rand much stimulation.” Despite studying at Pratt and other institutions in the New York area (including Parsons School of Design and the Art Students League), Rand was by-and-large “self-taught as a designer, learning about the works of Cassandre and Moholy-Nagy from European magazines such as [Gebrauchsgraphik].” Early career His career began with humble assignments, starting with a part-time position creating...
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...US History Since 1877 Critical Essay #1 Dr. Bachhofer Scopes Monkey Trial Religious controversy has been around from the birth of this country and beyond. This country was founded by people, at least in part, trying to get religious freedom from Europe. People, even today in modern society, want the right to believe whatever they want and not have someone else’s beliefs shoved down their throats or the throats of their children. This need for religious freedom and the age old controversy of religious battles sparked a huge trial in the mid 1920’s famously known as the “Monkey Trial”. By 1921, Protestantism split up into two distinct groups. One of these groups was known as the modernists and the other was known as the fundamentalists. Both groups were caught up in a fight with each other for the countries attention. Like any fight over something important, both groups thought they were right. The Modernists were made up primarily of urban, middle-class people. Modernists were attempting to change religion around to fit their society that was based around science mainly. They believed that there was a chance that Charles Darwin’s evolutionary theory had some merit. Above all else the rejected the idea that everything in the bible was 100% accurate. They left the door open for alternate interpretations of the bible, something that the fundamentalists despised. The fundamentalists (also known as the “defenders”) on the other hand consisted mostly of rural farmers...
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...selfish human nature and will eventually lead to deviance, therefore punishment will occur. b) The modernistic approach to delinquency focuses on the fact that human beings are products of forces over which they have no control. Science, including biological, psychological and even geographical forces all shape a person’s tendency to deviate. So with that thought in mind, a modernist would describe the reason why juveniles’ deviate is because they are psychologically “odd”. So this assumption says delinquency is a result of a child who was basically “wired” wrong and essentially abnormal. c) The post-modernistic assumption says that the struggles of everyday life cause deviant behavior. The environment a person is brought up in, their individual knowledge of the world and many other things can affect them in a negative way, consequently causing them to deviate. Post-modernists would suggest that the best way to punish an individual is to not punish them and actually provide them help instead. Forms of deterrence such as punishment must be thrown out because they do not work. With that in mind, post-modernists feel that people’s mistakes must be dealt...
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...This also helped to create a better relationship between his working method and the content of his works of art. This silkscreening technique that he employed proved to be instrumental to his artistic process and success. This was particularly useful to him because he was able to easily and quickly replicate his images, which helped him to push uphold the Modernist ideas of technological experimentation and viewer aesthetic engagement. Andy Warhol demonstrated the Modernist value of the machine age through his decision to use repetition within his works as well as allowing other people to do his work for him. In an interview, Warhol expressed his desire to be like a machine, which demonstrated that the Modernist value of Individualism was of no importance to him. This mechanistic view attacked what was traditionally known as the role of the artist, mainly due to the depersonalized process that Warhol employed. Warhol was able to change the way people view artwork by altering the way in which his work was made. He reproduces things rather than represent them, as well, he does not take authorship for his work. Warhol’s use of famous people and everyday objects as the subject of some of his works of art, was crucial to making them recognizable to the everyday man, giving them...
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...The dominant artistic movement from about 1900 to 1940, modernism was characterized by the reexamination of existence from every possible angle. Modernist writers sought to leave the traditions of nineteenth-century literature behind in terms of form, content, and expression. They realized that a new industrial age—full of machines, buildings, and technology—had ushered out rural living forever, and the result was often a pessimistic view of what lay before humankind. Frequent themes in modernist works are loneliness and isolation (even in cities teeming with people), and a significant number of writers tried to capture that sense of solitude by engaging in stream-of-consciousness writing, which captures the thought process of a single character as it happens without interruption. Some of the most famous modernist authors include Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Virginia Woolf, and James Joyce. 1. Open form and free verse are distinguishing characteristics of modernist poetry. Though commonplace now, this style was quite a break from nineteenth-century rules about meter and rhyme. 2. The moniker “The Lost Generation” was coined by Gertrude Stein and refers to those artists of the 1920s who had become disillusioned with America and found themselves living as ex-patriots in Europe, chiefly in France. 3. An example of stream-of-consciousness (also called “interior monologue”) from Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway: “She felt somehow very like him—the young man who...
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...never understood it. How can it be over? You are not alone. If there’s one word that confuses, upsets, angers, beleaguers, exhausts and contaminates us all, then it is postmodernism. And yet, properly understood, postmodernism is playful, intelligent, funny and fascinating. From Grace Jones to Lady Gaga, from Andy Warhol to Gilbert and George, from Paul Auster to David Foster Wallace, its influence has been everywhere and continues. It has been the dominant idea of our age. So what was it? Well, the best way to begin to understand postmodernism is with reference to what went before: modernism. Unlike, say, the Enlightenment or Romanticism, postmodernism (even as a word) summons up the movement it intends to overturn. In this way, postmodernism might be seen as the delayed germination of an older seed, planted by artists like Marcel Duchamp, during modernism’s high noon of the 1920s and 1930s. (Seen in this light, the start-date that the V&A offers for postmodernism—1970—is quite late.) Thus, if modernists like Picasso and Cézanne focused on design,...
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...Virginia Woolf is one of the most influential women authors of her time. She was a dedicated writer, especially when it referred to her inner feelings. Her work “A Room of One's Own” represents the struggles she went through as a women in a society where she was suppressed. This work was inspirational at the time, as many women didn't write about what they went through. She wrote about sensitive topics that could cause a lot of controversy. One of the main reasons Virginia Woolf about such topics is because she was tired of the way women were being treated. She even talks about how her brothers are sent of to prestigious college's while she learns at home. Reading the works of Virginia Woolf can give insight on the lives of women during the...
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...1977 but it was only completed in 1980, the year after Mrs Thatcher’s Conservative government came to power * The new government refused to implement the reports recommendations on grounds of cost and even tried to prevent its publication Post Modernism * For them, sociology has no contribution to make to policy. * The role of sociology is to simply allow people to seek out an understanding of their personal lives within a specific social context * This is because post-modernists reject the modernist idea of ‘progress’; social research cannot be used to usher in the ‘good society’ TO CRITICIZE : 1) the Post Modernists have been criticised by the fact that their view is highly vague, whereby everything has to be defined, leading to an infinite loop that cannot be stopped. MARXIST * The first is that they condemn all policies, no matter who they effect and what they are about, such as Sure Start, which raised thousands of children out of illiteracy at a young age (the Marxists...
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