Cold War and fear of annihilation

Question 1

Cold war and fear of annihilation
Culture and American literature

Answer 1

• 1940s: sense of discontinuity (generational relay with early modernism)
• Influences
  
  • 1920s experimentalism
  • 1930s realism
    
    • Modernism: brilliance and inventiness of techniques and style, moral ambiguity, modernist view of history and society as chaotic, violent, absurd, full of horror.
    • Realism: clear and straight forward way to explore relations between characters and their social enironment, shift towards the problems of the individual.
• Shared traits:
  
  • Disillusionment and scepticism towards traditional values and institutions.
    -Marked by trauma and devastation of war.
  • Focus on personal experience and self-expression.
  • Exploration of the impact of war on individuals and society.

Question 2

Cold war and fear of annihilation
Realism characteristics (3)

Answer 2

• Emphasizes the accurate and objective representation of the world.
• Detailed descriptions of characters, settings and events.
• Employed to explore themes of social and cultural change + individual identity and relationships. (John Updike, Raymond Carver, Richard Yates…)

Question 3

Cold war and fear of annihilation
Realism. War novels

Answer 3

• Depict a dark vision of America.
• Focus on experiences and mundane details of military life.
• Often avoid direct representation of battles.

Question 4

Cold war and fear of annihilation
Realism
“The Naked and the Dead” - Norman Mailler
5 characteristics

Answer 4

• Realistic war novel + novel of ideas
  - Exploring fascist thinking and an obsession with power as elements of the military mind.
• Second World War as a political fact of the American nation.
• Second World War as a personal fact of the American character.
• Flashbacks + in-depth character exploration.
• Dehumanizing effects of war.
• Devices :
  - The Time Machine
  - Chorus

Question 5

Cold war and fear of annihilation
Metafiction / absurdity
Characteristics (7)

Answer 5

• Blurs the line between fiction and reality.
• Drawing attention to the act of storytelling itself.
• Self-referential and self-conscious.
• Challenges reader’s assumptions about the nature of truth and fiction.
• Exploring war as illogical and obscene.
• Using the absurd to capture the bleak, bitter absurdities of that conflict.
• Human beings failing to find meaning in the meaningless.

Question 6

Cold war and fear of annihilation
Metafiction / absurdity
“Catch 22”- Joseph Heller

Answer 6

• Disjointed narrative technique + nightmare sequences + bleak humour to depict a world gone crazy.
• Protagonist as the victim of mad, conspiratorial military and political systems caught in a closed system.
• Replacing visions of honor and glory with nightmarish comedy sketches of violence, bureaucracy and madness.
• Sense of disillusionment about the military.

Question 7

Cold war and fear of annihilation
Metafiction / absurdity
“Slaughterhouse Five” - Kurt Vonnegut

Answer 7

• Science fiction + satire and comedy + bleak determinism.
• Conversational tone + short chapters + almost childlike descriptions.
• Suffering and atrocities human beings experienced in 20th century.
• Own experiences as a prisoner of war.
• Not chronological order.
• Billy has no control over where he goes and moves throughout his life randomly.
• “So it goes”.