The Lost Generation

During the 1920s their was a very popular group of writers called "The Lost Generation".The term "the lost generation" was coined by Gertrude Stein who is rumored to have heard her auto-mechanic while in France to have said that his young workers were, "une generation perdue". This referred to the horrible auto-mechanic repair skills. Gertrude Stein would use this phrase to describe the of 1920's who rejected American post WWI values. The three best known writers of The Lost Generation were F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and John Dos Passos. The others were Sherwood Anderson, Kay Boyle, Hart Crane, Ford Maddox Ford and Zelda Fitzgerald. Ernest Hemingway, Perhaps the leading literary figure of the decade, took Stein's and used it as an epigraph for his first novel, The Sun Also Rises. Because of the popularity of the novel, the term, "The Lost Generation" is the enduring term that has stayed with writers of 1920.

The "Lost Generation" defines a sense of moral loss or aimlessness apparent in literary figures during the 1920s. World War I seemed to have destroyed the idea that if you acted virtuously, good things would happen. Many good, young men went to war and died, or returned home either physically or mentally wounded, and their faith in the moral guideposts that had earlier given them hope, were no longer valid...they were "Lost."

These literary figures criticized American culture in fictional stories which had the themes of self exile, care free living and spiritual alienation. Fitzgerald's This Side of Pardise shows people of the 1920's covering their depression behind the force of the jazz age. Another Fitzgerald novel does the same where the illusion of happiness hides the loneliness of the main character.

The novels produced by the writers of the Lost Generation give insight to the lifestyles that people lead during the 1920's in America, and the literary works of these writers were innovative for their time and have influenced many future generations in their styles of writing.

-Prashant Singh
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