Modernism in "The Day of the Locust" (1939) by Nathanael West

von: Linda Schug

Fachsemester: 6

Contents

I. Introduction 3

1. Modern Society and Popular Culture 4
2. Modernism 5

2.1. Philosophical Background 6
2.2. Characteristics 7
2.3. Decadence 8

II. Modernism in The Day of the Locust 8

1. Surrealism and Dada 8

1.1. The Use of Readymades and Clichés 9
1.2. Flow of the Narrative 13
1.3. Surreal(istic) Imagery 14
1.4. Human Machines 16
1.5. Humor 18

2. Modernist Themes 20

2.1. Alienation 20
2.2. Violence and Decadence 21

III. Conclusion 23

I. Introduction

Jonathan Veitch asserts in the preface of his book American Superrealism that critics have had problems in placing Nathanael West within the literature of the 1930s and American literature in general. They understood him for example as "a poet of darkness", as "an apocalyptic writer", as "a homegrown surrealist", as "a writer of the left" (see XI), as a "universal satirist" (see XVI), in a way as "the prototype of the contemporary Jewish- American novelist" (Wisker 1-2) or as a realistic writer (Martin, see Roberts). Although some of these characterizations are contradictory, they all fit because they reflect different facets of the author, or rather his work. West combined all these elements and probably even several others in his writings. His "style was never constant. At times his pictorial technique closely resembles collage [but also] cartoon strips, movies, and several different schools of painting, as well as such non-graphic visual arts as the tableau and the dance." (Reid 9)

Taking the (though not planned) final result of his development as a writer, his last book The Day of the Locust (1939) as an example, I want to show in my essay that at least one of West′s books does not "fall between the different schools of writing" (Wisker 2), as he once noted. He is certainly a representative of modernism, the "literary movement" and "point of view" of his time (see O′Conner) not only because a "struggle for definition is part of what those years are about" (Wisker 121). Nathanael West was influenced by the same historical events and used many of the strategies other contemporary writers employed to express his way of seeing the world. I will point out the features of modernism in the novel because, as Randall Reid states, [i]n a century which has made experimental writing almost an absolute value, he is one of the more interesting innovators. The words we like to use to describe modern literature - ′violence′, ′the grotesque′, ′decadence′, ′dream′, ′irony′, ′allusion′, ′distortion′, ′realism′, ′tradition′, ′experiment′ - all are applicable to his work. So are a good many other words, both in and out of fashion. Though West anticipated new literary trends, he also incorporated many trends which had already flourished. (10) First of all, it will be useful to look at the historical background to understand modernism before defining it with emphasis on decadence as a special characteristic. In the next part of my essay, I am going to show how modernism, that is surrealism, Dada and the typical modernist themes, is reflected in the novel. Finally, I will summarize the resulting main points in the conclusion.

1. Modern Society and Popular Culture

The Great Crash in October 1929, the disastrous drought in Summer 1930, Europe stopping to pay reparations, and the bankruptcy of the Bank of America and 9000 others involved, lead to the Depression of the 1930s, a social and political-economic crisis, and made a new structuring of the economic system necessary. Millions of people have lost their savings and/or their jobs, prices and wages were sinking. A panic spread because this situation had not changed for years and its causes were not clear. (see PKH 54/5) Feeling the need to "reconstruct the ′hidden′ logic of an elusive social reality", the arts produced "case studies, reportage, documentary photography, proletarian literature, and ′social problem′ films". (Stott, see Veitch XVII)

Society seemed to split into two camps: optimists believing in the ability of improvement of people and circumstances, and the ideal state of affairs still to come - pessimists critically negotiating the present and idealizing the past. (see PKH 56) Nervousness was a common feature of the time "manifested as the gloomy insecurity of a shaken, scared middle class, or the perennial anxiety of the working poor, or the desperate fatalism of the unemployed". (BW 4) That is why "restoring their faith in the values of capitalism, bridging this void between the real and imaginary, was the quintessential function and objective of the President [F. D. Roosevelt]′s New Deal ideology." (BW 5) People were uncertain and would perhaps turn to socialism, fascism or another radically new ideology. This led to a rise of the media industry (see BW 5) as well as to the acquisition of radios [...]; the growth of advertising and market research, with their subliminal techniques of symbolism and image projection; and the popularity of movies, which on the whole replicated (with the addition of sound) the irresponsible attitudes and plots of their twenties counterparts. The terms ′evasiveness′ and ′escapism′ have been used frequently, and quite properly, in descriptions of popular culture in this period. (BW 6) The thirties were "a time when destitution, stagnation and aimlessness were widespread, but also one in which legislation and technology moved the nation towards the welfare state, the suburban lifestyles and the consumerism characteristic of the postwar period." (BW 8-9)

2. Modernism

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