Masculinity and the Lost Generation

World War I turned people's perspective of the world upside down. Many war veterans were very young. Understandably, all of these people that had just come of age were left disoriented. They became known as the "lost generation". The term became popularized by Ernest Hemingway, who uses a quote from Gertrude Stein in the epigraph of his first novel The Sun Also Rises. The quote reads "You are all a lost generation", recognizing the sense confusion and pointlessness the war-survivors experienced. Hemingway himself was part of the lost generation, having fought in the war and being returned home wounded.

As we discussed in class, Hemingway is known for being the pinnacle of masculinity. His interests included big game hunting, bull-fighting, marlin fishing, picking fights in bars, and the works. In Hemingway's point of view, being a man includes putting up a tough shell, a quality that he passes on to the narrator of The Sun Also Rises, Jacob Barnes. Jake is a very frank person. Like Hemingway, he also likes to drink and seems to have thorough knowledge of all things masculine, like boxing. He acts unimpressed by the feats of others to appear superior. Because he is a man. Or maybe, as has been revealed to us in recent reading, Jake is trying to cover up for his insecurities about his war injury.

It appears that many veterans during this time period could not live up to the ideals of masculinity. In Virginia Woolf's novel Mrs. Dalloway, Septimus Warren Smith, a shell-shocked member of the lost generation, plays a prominent role. Septimus is completely traumatized by the events of the way after having his friend die right before his eyes. He is enormously transformed by the war. He began as a young poet and lover of Shakespeare, two things that are not stereotypically masculine. Even his employer, Mr. Brewer, thinks something is wrong with him and prescribes football as a cure. Impassioned by his love of literature, Septimus signs up to fight for his country and in the trenches Mr. Brewer's wish comes true -- he learns not to feel. He panics and this sends him spiraling down a path to suicide.

Masculinity in the army was defined as having this ability to separate yourself from all emotions. Those who "failed' and were affected by shell-shock were regarded as cowards. It was in the culture of the early 20th century to expect too much of this "lost generation". However, not all were affected equally, boosting the ideals of perfect masculinity. While modern psychiatrists might regard Jake Barnes as someone in need of therapy, Mr. Brewer in the early 1920's would praise him for coming out of the war unscathed, like a real man.

Inside Mrs. Dalloway's head

The plot of Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway is fairly simplistic -- Clarissa Dalloway goes through the preparations for the party she is throwing that evening. It's the way that Woolf tells the story that really makes the novel worth reading. Instead of writing in a fourth-wall disconnected manner, Woolf places us as readers inside the heads of the characters. In this way, she can achieve much more than if she was just floating on the surface. She allows us to see everyone's personal reactions to the events that take place, and as an audience I find that some ordinary actions are much more interesting and even relatable.

This way of writing reiterates the point she makes in her essay Modern Fiction. Woolf believes that a story should be driven by the characters instead of having the characters exist to take on specific roles in the plot of the novel. I think this makes the story a lot more life-like since each of the characters have distinct personalities and the ways that they interact are more natural. Their reactions to things are relatable because sometimes have opposing views of what just happened in front of them, much like real people. This effect could not be achieved as effectively if we were not allowed to see inside all of the characters' thoughts since some fourth-wall styles of writing seem to have a pre-existing idea of what the reader's conclusion should be. Thus, allowing the story to be plot driven. Mrs. Dalloway allows for more freedom of interpretation.

Because Woolf's style is so different, I had some trouble following the course of the novel at first, especially keeping track of whose point of view the description of the action was coming from. Her all-knowing narrator transitions so easily from one thought to the next that you almost don't notice it. As we got further in the novel and met more characters, I learned to recognize the vocabulary and tone of specific characters. This is especially noticeable in Septimus' paranoid and poetic view on the world as opposed to Rezia's stressed recounting or Richard's timidity. Overall I find her writing style very intriguing.