All of these various styles responded to the industrialization of Europe in their own unique fashions, and resulted in a strange conglomeration of art, ideals, and themes. The earliest and perhaps greatest response to industrialization was the era or Romanticism. Disgusted by the squalor and pollution produced by industry, many artists and writers turned to Romanticism, glorifying nature over civilized society and emotion over reason. Romanticism prized natural beauty and despised the materialistic ideals of the Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution. Romantic art tended to revolve around nature or some heroic deed, ignoring or tuning away from industry and logic, and when it did not, it reviled it.
Industrialization greatly affected the balance of power in the world. Those nations that did industrialize became significantly more powerful. The first nation to industrialize was Great Britain. One of the major effects of industrialization was the need for raw materials, so it encouraged colonialism. The European powers attempted to dominate in far-flung places in order to make sure that they had the resources needed to drive their
The governing authorities again like to use culturally significant figures in the tales of innovation and invention and discovery. Even with such advanced politics and thought, a class distinction still persisted, and though they had seen the benefit of all this technology, there were those in the upper class who felt it was beneath them to use such tools in any way. T Innovation was of great value to both the Han and Romans. The Han placed a higher attribution to culturally relevant creators. For example, Huan Tan, an upper-class Han philosopher wrote in New Discourses (Document III) of an emperor of myth inventing and refining the pestle and mortar for all people.
Mary Shelley’s gothic promethean novel, Frankenstein (1818), was released during the industrial revolution as romanticism was thriving, while Ridley Scott’s futuristic sci-fi Blade runner (1992) grew with the dawning of a capitalistic increasingly globalised and technologically driven society. The comparative study of these texts encompasses themes of humanity and playing God through a tone of moral warning and allows the responder to explore how similar content in different contexts will reflect changing, but also constant values. Through the use of filmic techniques, Scott demonstrates how nature and religion are absent in a world overrun by consumerism and technology. Due to her context, Shelley alternatively uses imagery and allusions to hint at the consequences humanity will suffer if they try to better God through the misuse of science and the corruption of nature. Both of these texts reflect the distinctive contexts in which they were written; although separated by over 100 years of history, they still present similar issues and dilemmas which affected the form and features of the individual texts.
Satire being irony, or sarcasm used to expose vice or a moral fault had became the idea for the novel. Thus the setting being World War II made the novel purpose even better. The setting is where the achievement lays “that Heller’s achievement lies in his brilliant use of the setting as metaphor or a satirical macrocosm for many of the macrocosm idiocies afflicting the postwar era in general” (Aldridge). Heller uses satire in order to reveal the idiocy of war (Aldridge). Making Catch-22 the remarkable as well as groundbreaking masterpiece it is today.
The Great Gatsby’s Exposure of the Fraud of the American Dream The Great Gatsby provides a different way of looking at the Roaring Twenties and the Modernism movement. A characteristic of the Modernism era is being anti-traditional versus the traditional form of writing. The Great Gatsby shows real life in the seemingly extravagant and exciting portrayal of the time period. The Modern era brought around a change in the style of writing and thinking. F. Scott Fitzgerald uses this to describe American life as an illusion of prosperity instead of the traditional place where dreams are made.
The spectacular continental expansion Westward and the advent of new technologies during the industrial revolution were rapidly allowing for new concepts and new propositions. The widespread recognition of Social Darwinism provided Americans with a sense of moral superiority – an obligation to assist backward cultures and seemingly ‘remedial’ civilisations all over the world. The Monroe Doctrine remained a bold international statement of American authority, and the new ‘Manifest Destiny’ represented action and divine guidance. America was brimming with optimism, frustration, chivalry, hope and action. Despite McKinley’s attempts at diplomacy, he was feeble opposition to the emotional magnitude of what was emerging in America.
INTRODUCTION Mary Shelley's artistic creativity incorporates in it the peculiar characteristics of English Romanticism defined by historical and social features and spiritual development of the British society. Industrial Revolution generated a quick growth of cities and simultaneously the sharpest social problems. That led to a critical revision of the relation between prospects of social development and scientific and technical progress developed in XVIII century. The crisis of Enlightenment ideology caused a Romantic attitude to life. At the same time English Romanticists to a certain degree still kept fidelity to traditions of the previous stage of development of the literature.
Capitalism brought about the industrialisation of modern society, this idea is favoured by Marxists but postmodernists argue that society is not as simple as this. Postmodernism has emerged since the 1970s, in a postmodern society we are defined by what we consume society is not simply one thing but an unstable, fragmented, media saturated global village where image and reality are indistinguishable. Foucault argues that there are no objective criteria that we can use to prove whether a theory is true or false and if we cannot guarantee if knowledge is correct we cannot use it to improve society this view is known as anti foundationalism. Anti foundationalism is based on two key concepts, the enlightenment of achieving progress through true scientific knowledge and any all embracing theory that claims to have the absolute truth about how to create a better society such as Marxism however it is a meta- narrative and is just someone’s version of reality and it is not necessarily the truth so there is no need to accept the claims that the theory makes Postmodernists a reject meta narratives such as Marxism because they have helped create oppressive totalitarian states that have impose their version of the truth on people for example the former soviet union in Russia. Because they believe that all accounts of reality are equally valid so we should therefore recognise and celebrate diversity rather than imposing one
‘Modernist writers are concerned with depicting the alienation at the heart of modern experience’. Consider this statement with reference to one of the modernist texts on your course. James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man The ‘modern experience’ in the cultural history of the world may be defined as having a few particular traits, firstly the move from a feudal to a capitalist society, secondly the consequences and aftermath of the First World War, and finally industrialization, which includes the advancement of technology and the increasing focus on urban and city areas. The idea of one world passing out of existence while another was being forged was what some would call the modern experience; this idea can be seen to be mirrored in the mental landscape of the era. Traditional structures, ideas and roles were being challenged and broken down.