The Lost Generation and the Expatriate Movement

Many of the expatriates began their exodus from America for a variety of reasons; World War 1 and the effects that it impacted on the writers of the time, the roaring twenties and the post war psychological effects that created the lost generation that many of the writers fell into. This post war attitude and the lost generation inspired such books as Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises.
Some of the reasoning behind the exodus was the disagreement of the leaders and actions of America at this time. Political reasoning was a forunner of this movement either it be World War 1 or other political viewpoints. The post war veterans were also a major reason for the exodus. The lost generation resulted in many disorders not recognized at the time. Many of the things that they were experiencing, Post traumatic stress disorder, was was not recognized or understood at the time.
The mass exodus that left America was not only of writers and artists but many of the wealthy elite, the intellectuals, the recent college graduates, current students and the lost generation of war veterans. This lost generation of war veterans consisted of soldiers that did not know what to do in this new post war society so they continued to move around Europe finding comfort in what they could find. We see these characters in The Sun Also Rises.
The expatriate movement was all over Europe flocking to cities all around but the main bulk of them and the artist bunch went to France and more specifically Paris. The artist community revolved heavily around Gertrude Stein. She was one of the major American figures in this movement. Writers and artists and expatriates in general tried to have an introduction to her in hopes of getting on her good side. “America is my country, and Paris is my hometown” (stein) this was the basis of the expatriate movement, although the place you were currently living in might be your home but America will always be your homeland.
The Roaring Twenties was also a post war movement. It was a time of post war optimism. People were living their lives like no one had lived before. People were living carefree and embraced ideas of hedonism. The jazz age was a big motivator. It moved people towards economical optimism. Spending what they had and making profits. All of these ideas were other causes for the exodus from America.
Post war generations always have tendencies that differ from the tendencies of the average generations before and after them. Many of the veterans have disillusionment that they do not share with the civilians. They then affect the civilians that they in counter, resulting in the oddities of society post war. These oddities are what started the Roaring Twenties and the Jazz age and inspired such writers such as Scott Fitzgerald to write novels such as the Great Gatsby. It also was the motivator of many of the expatriates that began experimenting with more modernistic views of literature and art.

Their Eyes Were Watching God

Janie is the protagonist of the story and the book describes the struggles that she goes through in finding herself. When we are first introduced to Janie she is older but goes into a story describing her past and she takes us back to when she lived with her grandmother. Her grandmother, Nanny was a slave before the emancipation. While she was a slave she was raped by her owner and had a child. Soon after the birth of the child she fled the plantation to try and find a better life for her daughter. She made it her mission to try and give her the life she didn’t have, but she wasn’t able to give it to her she ended up pregnant and she left the baby with Nanny and ran away. Nanny saw this as an opportunity to have a second chance and she can try and give this baby a better life. Nanny tried to push all of her ideals on Janie.
“Honey de white man is de ruler of everything as far as Ah been able tuh find out. Maybe it’s someplace way off in de ocean where de black man is in power but we don’t know nothin’ but what we see. So de white man throw down de load and tell de niggerman tuh pick it up. He pick it up because he have to, but he don’t do it he hand it to his women folks. De nigger woman is de mule of de world so as far as ah can see. Ah been praying fur it tuh be different wud you.”(14)
Nannys intentions weren’t bad, just trying to get a better life for Janie. Her views of a better life are security, with a man and money. This is why she arranged a marriage between Janie and Logan. He is a farmer and has money and is able to provide for Janie. She tried to love him, giving it time and trying to see the best of him. In this relationship she was just as she was with her grandmother. She wasn’t independent she was property.
When she meets Jody she felt something that she never felt with Logan, an attraction. She feels free and not as confined as she was with Logan. Not long after the freedom dissolved away the relationship began to turn into her last relationship. Jody begins to treat her like a trophy wife not allowing her to wear her hair down and confined her to the things she was able to do. Jody soon became the Mayor and really began to confine her. Her life became mundane, like how it was with Logan. Her life was again unsatisfying.
When Jody died she finally was relived and was able to be independent. He left her with a lot of money so she didn’t not need to continue to find security with a man because she has made her own. So when she meets Tea Cake she doesn’t need to worry about anything other than her feelings for him. She was truly able to evolve with him. He showed her things that the others couldn’t. She wants to go with him to places and work in the field with him. She if a completely different person and she seem to be the most in her element.

Thinking Outside the Box

I think that the piece in its entirety has several patterns that weave through the three sections. I the main pattern is in the things that she is describing. Look at the three section titles; objects, food, rooms. These are all very basic objects, household items that you would encounter on a day-to-day basis. She is trying to give a new perspective on something that you have seen so frequently. You’re not supposed to look at these poems and see the average description of a chair or of a carafe it trying to get you mind to thing of it in a different way. 


“A LONG DRESS.

What is the current that makes machinery, that makes it crackle, what is the current that presents a long line and a necessary waist.
What is this current.

What is the wind, what is it.
 Where is the serene length, it is there and a dark place is not a dark place, only a white and red are black, only a yellow and green are blue, a pink is scarlet, a bow is every color. A line distinguishes it. A line just distinguishes it.”


 Look at this description of a long dress. She describes how it flows and how it moves, the current the flows through it. She also gives you an image of the dress describing the waistline. She talks about the colors of the dress and the separation between them. She almost brings this dress alive and gives it a presence.

 She also has a lot of patterns of repetitions with in the poems. She also tends to use the same word frequently in related poems.
“CHICKEN.


Pheasant and chicken, chicken is a peculiar third.


CHICKEN.


Alas a dirty word, alas a dirty third alas a dirty third, alas a dirty bird.


CHICKEN.


Alas a doubt in case of more go to say what it is cress. What is it. Mean. Potato. Loaves.


CHICKEN.


Stick stick call then, stick stick sticking, sticking with a chicken. Sticking in a extra succession, sticking in.”

These four poems are all related in a few similar ways. They are all in the same section, have the same titles and are located next to one another. But some of these poems have specific factors in each that relate them to one of the others.
- The first and the third share the word “third.”
- The second and the third share a similar word repetition with the word “alas.”
- The first and the third are similar in sentence structure that they have two different statements.
- The second and the last have their repetition of words in common.
They all seem to have a similar description of chickens like eating a chicken and how it sticks or how dirty it is. They all are trying to get you to think of a chicken in a different way, in anyway other than what you would normal associate with chicken. She wants you to think outside of the box and don’t think of the box in the normal parameters that a box would be included in.
Stein, Gertrude. Tender Buttons Objects--Food--Rooms. The Online Distributed Proofreading Team. Print.