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Aesthetic differences between two strands of modernism and historical and social events that influenced art between the world wars
Modernism fostered a period of experimentation in the arts between the two world wars. This period was characterized by high rates of industrialization, extreme social change, development and advancements in science and social science (Frost 89). Thus, because of these developments, the modernists experienced growing alienation, as they were incompatible with Victorian morality, optimism, and convention.
The impulse of the modernist was enhanced by various literatures that depicted industrialization and urbanization through the search for authentic response to a changed world. For instance, Eliot’s poem “The Waste land” is a good example of modern life by the author. Here, Greenland has been referred to as a province of the WasteLand (Eliot 120). One can see that the historical and social events that influenced art between the world wars include social movements such as feminism, socialism, and communism. These events engaged artistic expressions such as visual art, dance, theater, fiction, poetry and music. During this period, artists continuously laid their foundation on the intrinsic qualities of the medium such as line, color and form, hence moving away from the traditional notion of the arts. As a result, during wars these tendencies were spread worldwide leading to full utilization of simple, geometric shapes.
Expatriate writers and migrant writers
Steinbeck as an expatriate writer was born in America, in Salinas, California in 1902. His work was extremely influenced by his political experiences. In particular the ‘The Grapes of Wrath”, was a portrayal of the downside of capitalism and his own unique version of the historical events that surrounded the “Dust bowl” emigrations in the mid 1930s. Steinbeck wrote about America in a negative light, particularly the way the migrants were being treated in their new land (Steinbeck 56). For instance, in the book, the writer employed ordinary folk during the depression period as a way of reflecting his social consciousness displaying the struggles of the rural workers. His writings led to improvement of the migrant camps and better working conditions for migrants in the United States. Steinbeck interpreted the inhuman living conditions among migrating “Okies” which later caught the attention of Roosevelt making him take a step in challenging the congress to review labor laws.
Migrant writer Carlos Bulosan “Be American” focused his ideas on the racism nature of the Americans. The writer was an Asian American who put his attention on the portraying a particular message of shedding more light on the idea of bias and prejudice toward Asians in the land of the free. Bulosan`s ideas were that Asians were only allowed to act as Americans rather than becoming Americans since this would be viewed as prolonging the political traditional designation of them as inassimilable aliens (Bulosan 67). In this book, Bulosan shows that names of a place were a clear indication of the limits of early Filipino immigrant world. He showed the impacts of nature, political, and economical struggles experienced by the immigrants. For instance, the immigrants lacked citizenship, experienced high rates of unemployment, and frequent violence directed to them, which led them to the state of dispossession.
The views of these writers were similar in that they all portrayed the negative side of the Americans on the migrants. For instance, both Steinbeck and Bulosan showed the hardship of the black Americans went though under the white Americans. However, Bulosan`s views were mainly focused on the effects of racism on the immigrants in particular the Asian Americans , while Steinbeck’s views focused on the general lives of all the non Americans.
Works Cited
Bulosan, Carlos. Bulosan: an introduction with selections. Michigan, MA: University of Michigan, 2008.
Eliot, Thomas. The Waste Land. New York, NY: InfoBase Publishing, 2007.
Frost, Robert. Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening. New York, NY: Diane Pub Co, 2004.
Steinbeck, John. The grapes of wrath. Chicago, LA: Penguin Books, 2000.
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