Disillusionment In The Modernist Period

The Modernist Period lasted from the nineteenth century until the middle of the twentieth century. During this time the world experienced events like World War I and World War II, which had a very negative influence on society and shifted their perspective of the world to create a sense of disillusionment. This influence of tragic events translated to the writings during the Modernist Period, which no longer consisted of the traditional writing that many were accustomed to. Writers were branching out to reach as many people as possible because tradition was no longer important in the Modernist age. Three writers who conveyed disillusionment in order to show society’s battle with the ever changing world in the modernist age were T.S. Eliot,

Eliot. Eliot is responsible for the poem “Hollow Men” which describes a world that is told through the eyes of a hollow man, with no religion or promise of salvation and has a very pessimistic view of the world. His opening lines read, “We are the hollow men / we are stuffed men / learning together / headpiece filled with straw. Alas!” (Eliot, lines 1-4), which shows that these men were worth nothing. They were unproductive with their thinking hence the reference to straw in their heads. Their physical presence was seen by people yet they were empty people inside. The next few lines continue with this tone as it says, “Our dried voices, when / We whisper together / Are quiet and meaningless / As wind in dry grass” (5-8). When these men try and speak no one can hear them and even if they were heard their ideas are worthless. In these first eight lines the description of these men is set by Eliot due to the imagery set by his choice of words and these lines resonated with people who read them. Many people in the world felt the same as these hollow men did; they felt like their voices were lost in wind like dry grass, as they tried to cope with the sudden realization that the world had become a new place full of violence, loss, and despair. They had to battle with this sense of disillusionment just as the hollow men did because they were not used to a world that felt so hopeless and lossed. Along with Eliot came Wilfred Owens who used disillusionment to help the struggling people of the Modernist