“Then I grew up, and the beauty and the beauty of succulent illusions fell away from me.”

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Rising out of the rebellious mood at the beginning of the twentieth century, modernism was a radical approach that aimed to give new life to the way modern civilization viewed society, art, politics, and science. (History of Modernism) This rebellious attitude that flourished between 1900 and 1930 had, as its basis, the rejection of European culture for having become too corrupt, complacent and lethargic, dying because it was bound by the artificialities of a society that was too taken with image and too scared of change. (History of Modernism)
This dissatisfaction with the moral bankruptcy of everything European led modern thinkers and artists to explore other alternatives. (History of Modernism) The result would be explosive; the new emerging culture would take over tradition and authority in the hopes of transforming contemporary society. (History of Modernism)
In other words, the modernists repudiated the moral codes of the society in which they were living in. (History of Modernism) The reason that they did so was not necessarily because they did not believe in God, although there was a great majority of them who were atheists, or that they experienced great doubt about the meaninglessness of life. (History of Modernism) Rather, their rejection of conventional living day to day was based on its dull conformity and its tiresome control over human feelings. (History of Modernism) In other words, the rules of conduct were a restrictive and limiting force over the human spirit. The modernists believed that for an individual to feel whole and a contributor to the re-vitalization of the social process, he or she needed to be free of all the emotionally heavy baggage of hundreds of years of hypocrisy. (History of Modernism)
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... held her wealth as an item for the sake of her own joy. She never really loved anyone, and she was the antithesis of the Ideal American Woman. She became more bitter throughout the story, and you can see her lose the type of luster for life she held.
In A Rose for Emily, a whole town is willing to go along with the illusion a young woman is a mere orphan - widow, with a terrible problem for social disgrace. In reality, Emily is a mentally ill young woman, who was abused very terribly by her father, who’s dead corpse she kept in the cellar, along with the dead body of her husband.

Works Cited

Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Beautiful and
Damned. New York: Charles
Scribner's Sons, 1922.

"History of Modernism." History of
Modernism. Mdc.edu, n.d. Web. 12
May 2014.
history_of_modernism.htm>.

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