A time when teenagers wanted to be young, wild and free, or where a big robotic man called The Terminator saves your life with his famous pick up line, " Come with me if you want to live," sounds a lot like something you would find on MTV. However, this also resembles a time of Modernism back in the 1900s. A time where technology advanced greatly, leading to a mass destruction in WWI, leaving many people with the thought of, "Why? What's the point if the only thing promised in this world is death?" Experimenting life, being rebellious, and pushing the limits is what the world went to for answers, not to mention, literature. This was a turning point in art and literature, for example "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury, and "The First Seven Years" by Bernard Malamud, two stories that evolved around this idea of modernism through their connection to technology, and a young girl desperate to live her way.
By the looks of it, technology brought a lot of death, sorrow, and yet a new way of life in this Modernistic period. As well as in the story Fahrenheit 451, where technology was their only source of living, yet it alienated the real purpose and meaning of life, where people didn't even bother to look for it. In modernism there where people who wanted to take advantage of the time they had to live, and there where others who didn't see the point if they were going to die anyways. In this story, the author Ray Bradbury, showed how families didn't have that united tie to each other, and technology was more important than having that person to person relationship. The hound, a robotic dog that attacked people also demonstrated the destruction of technology, which came in WWI, and allowed people a new technique of ending someones life. Overall, it seems like death was a new topic for modernism, although it also brought up the excitement of life in some people like in the story, The First Seven Years.
A rebelious, independant, and somewhat stubborn young woman wasn't that common to find back in the 1900s, and for a father this wasn't the easiest thing to deal with. In the story the First Seven Years, a young woman named Miriam is pushed by her father to go to school, get an education, and marry a man who can support and take care of her. Yet, Miriam had the desire to read, explore life,work, and take care of herself. In Modernism, this was a new way of thinking for young people. They had the heart to try and experiment new things, and they knew life was meant to be an adventure.
Overall whether technology brought destruction or new ideas, and experimenting became a new trend, modernism was a new stepping stone to the growth of our species. After WWI, many people were left with this new question on the mind of whats the point, and over the years i believe that the point it to see the world as our playground, and we have the privileged to play on it.
