|
WWI and the American Short Story
CONTEXTUALIZATION: World War I, known at the time as the War to End All Wars, broke out on September 28, 1914, when Gavrilo
Princip, a Bosnian Serb student, shot and killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, in Sarajevo,
Bosnia. Immediately following the assassination Germany pledged its full support to Austria-Hungary, pressuring them to declare
war on Serbia, while France strengthened its backing of Russia. Convinced that the Serbian government had conspired against
them, Austria-Hungary issued Serbia an unacceptable ultimatum, to which Serbia consented almost entirely. Unsatisfied, Austria-Hungary
declared war on Serbia on July 28, 1914. On July 29, Russia ordered a partial mobilization only against Austria-Hungary in
support of Serbia, which escalated into a general mobilization. The Germans threatened war on July 31 if the Russians did
not demobilize. Upon being asked by Germany what it would do in the event of a Russo-German War, France responded that it
would act in its own interests and mobilized. On August 1, Germany declared war on Russia, and two days later, on France.
The German invasion of Belgium to attack France, which violated Belgium's official neutrality, prompted Britain to declare
war on Germany. World War I had begun. However, the United States did not immediately enter the war. In January 1917, after
the Navy pressured the Kaiser, Germany resumed unrestricted submarine warfare. Britain's secret "Room 40" cryptography
group had decrypted the German diplomatic code, and discovered a proposal from Berlin (the famed Zimmermann Telegram) to Mexico
to join the war as Germany's ally against the United States, should the U.S. join. The proposal suggested that if the U.S.
were to enter the war, Mexico should declare war against the United States and enlist Japan as an ally. This would prevent
the United States from joining the Allies and deploying troops to Europe, and would give Germany more time for their unrestricted
submarine warfare program to strangle Britain's vital war supplies. In return, the Germans would promise Mexico support in
reclaiming Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. After the British revealed the telegram to the United States, Woodrow Wilson released
the captured telegram as a way of building support for U.S. entry into the war. Wilson previously had claimed neutrality,
even while calling for the arming of U.S. merchant ships delivering war supplies to combatant Britain without questioning
the British blockading and mining of German ports. After submarines sank seven U.S. merchant ships and the publication of
the Zimmerman telegram, Wilson called for war on Germany, which the U.S. Congress declared on April 6, 1917. The war ended
on November 11, 1918, with the United States suffering 117,465 deaths and 205,690 wounded in a winning Allies war effort
over the central powers.
SALIENT POINTS: Although recognized primarily as a stylist and innovator of form, Hemingway also embraced a distinctly
modern, existentialist worldview that influenced twentieth-century literature. Hemingway himself took part in the war effort.
After being rejected for active duty by the army, he joined the Red Cross. Soon after arriving on the Italian Front Hemingway
witnessed the brutalities of war. On his first day on duty, an ammunition factory near Milan blew up. Hemingway had to pick
up the human, primarily female, remains. This first encounter with death left him shaken. On July 8, 1918, Hemingway was
wounded delivering supplies to soldiers, which ended his career as an ambulance driver. He was hit by an Austrian trench mortar
shell that left fragments in his legs, and was also hit by a burst of machine-gun fire. He was later awarded the Silver Medal
of Military Valor from the Italian government for dragging a wounded Italian soldier to safety in spite of his own injuries.
Novels such as The Sun Also Rises (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sun_Also_Rises) and A Farewell to Arms (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Farewell_to_Arms)
are populated by men who are, in Hemingway's words, "hurt very badly in the body, mind, and spirit, and also morally."
In these works, World War I casts a shadow over characters who, no longer believing in the traditions and values of the nineteenth
century or in the goodness of government, are disillusioned idealists who reject nationalist propaganda and easy sentimentality.
Nevertheless, the Hemingway hero struggles to make his own meaning in a world filled with cynicism and war.
INFLUENCE ON THE SHORT STORY: Just as authors began to get more creative with their short stories, a tragedy struck. World
War I severely dampened the spirits and styles of writers around the world. They began to experiment with new conventions
and restructured the classic short story. In Europe, Katherine Mansfield (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Mansfield),
Virginia Woolf (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Woolf), DH Lawrence (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dh_Lawrence), and
James Joyce (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Joyce) all attempted to get across the idea of anxiety, moral paralysis, and
restlessness. At the same time, but across the Atlantic in the United States, Edith Wharton (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_Wharton),
Ernest Hemingway (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Hemingway), and Sherwood Anderson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherwood_Anderson)
were writing about their own frustrations with the time. They, too, experimented with different structural forms, as many
writers began to experiment with the traditional form of writing and challenged the reader's preconceived notions of value
and order. However, some in the end were resigned to write depressing tales of alcoholism, adultery, and the jazz age. New
styles of representation were necessary to express the new ideas and values of the age. The general public of this time period,
facing a war to go to, enjoyed reading short stories. In fact, a number of high-profile magazines, such as The Atlantic Monthly
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Monthly), Scribner's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scribner%27s), and The Saturday
Evening Post (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturday_Evening_Post), all published short stories in each issue. The demand for
quality short stories was so great, and the money paid for them so high, that F. Scott Fitzgerald (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F_Scott_Fitzgerald)
repeatedly turned to short story writing to pay off his numerous debts.
CONNECTIONS TO OUR CLASS: The veterans who returned to the United States in 1918 were angry and disillusioned, having
participated in destruction on a greater scale, using much deadlier weapons than the world had ever known before. Of the
one million Americans drafted and sent overseas, many came from small rural towns like Winesburg, and may never have gone
beyond the county limits, much less traveled to Europe and killed people, if not for the war. The returning veterans brought
back stories of their experiences, cracking the shell that secluded farm towns from the outside world. Winesburg, Ohio by
Sherwood Anderson was published the year after the war ended. The book is a collection of related short stories which could
be loosely defined as a novel. The stories are centered on the protagonist George Willard and the fictional inhabitants of
the town of Winesburg, Ohio.
CITATIONS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_war_I
http://www.pvhs.chico.k12.ca.us/~bsilva/projects/great_war/causes.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_casualties
http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/users/98/josh/creative/history.html
http://www.hcc.cc.il.us/online/engl111/historyss.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_story#Modern_short_stories
http://www.enotes.com/twentieth-century-criticism/influence-ernest-hemingway
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Hemingway
|
