The Sad Young Men

Rod W. Horton & Herbert W. Edwards

Lesson 5

Structure

Pre-reading

While-reading

Post-reading

1. Pre-reading questions

2. Background information

1. Text analysis

2. Vocabulary

Exercise

Ⅰ. Pre-reading

A. Pre-reading Questions 1. Have you ever been sad on the road of

growing mature? 2. What does the Sad Young Men refer to? 3. Do you think that there is always a younger

generation problem? 4. Do you know anything about ‘The Lost

Generation’? What do they usually signify?

B. Background Information 1. The Sad Young Men & The Lost Generation

Both terms refer to the same group of people who were disillusioned intellectuals and aesthetes of the years after WWI, who rebelled against former ideals and values, but could replace them only by despair or a cynical hedonism. They applied to those American writers, born around 1900, who fought in WWI and voluntarily exiled to Paris, forming a group against certain tendencies of older writers in the 1920s.

The term “The Sad Young Men” was created by F. Scott Fitzgerald in his book All the Sad Young Men, while the term “The Lost Generation” was used by Gertrude Stein. These writers were traditionally called expatriate artists.

“America is my country and Paris is my hometown and it is as it has come to be”

—— Gertrude Stein

Before and after WW , many American writers and Ⅰartists stayed in Europe. Some were in London; some were in Italy or elsewhere. But sooner or later, almost everyone went to Paris, and stayed there for different length of time.

They moved to Europe to escape from the suffocating reality—and to write. The confusion, the pains and the despair suffered by a post-war generation was vividly captured by the writers of the Lost Generation, especially by Ernest Hemingway, the most eloquent spokesman of the group. These authors wrote novels and short stories expressing their resentment towards the materialism and individualism rampant during this era.

Ezra Pound (1885-1972)Sherwood Anderson

Eugene O’Neill

Sinclair Lewis

2. Typical Representatives

Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961),

William Faulkner (1897-1962),

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940),

Gertrude Stein (1874-1946),

Ezra Pound (1885-1972),

Hart Crane (1899-1932),

…

3. Common Features They are ex-soldiers spiritually shattered by the

war; They all lived in Paris for a certain period of time

and associated with the informal literary saloon of Gertrude Stein’s Paris home;

They were all disillusioned with the American tradition of writing as well as the post-war American society.

They became more conscious of form, style, language, or medium than any previous generation of Americans.

Ⅱ. Text Analysis A. Main Idea 1. Please go through the whole text and find

out those words and phases which indicates the specific people concerned.

Para. 1: flapper; drugstore cowboy … 2: the young people … 3: young people … 4: youth, the young, the intellectuals … 5: idealized citizens, our young men,

the young men of college age

… 6: the eager young men, soldiers returned from the battlefields in 1919, the college contingent, veterans, tension-ridden youth of America

… 7: artists and writers, hopeful young writers

… 8: imitators, young people

…

The young people in the United States in the Twenties, especially those writers and artists…

2. Please pick out some main words and expressions from the text that means oppositions or contradictions.

Para. 1: revolt, denunciation…

… 2: revolt

… 3: rejection, breakdown, destruction

… 4: challenge, escape, escapism

… 5: rebellion

… 6: overthrow

… 7: tear down, flout

... 8: defy…

… 9: denouncing

3. Please pick out the words and expressions denoting the things that the young people reacted against.

Para. 1: puritan morality … 3: Victorian gentility, Victorian social structure, an obsolescent 19th-century society … 6: genteel standards of behavior … 7: the old world, the morality of their grandfathers ... 8: the law and the conventions, … 9: materialism, the cultural boobery of our society

4. Please pick out the topic sentences in the following paragraphs:

Paragraph 2:

Paragraph 3:

Paragraph 5:

Paragraph 7:

Paragraph 8:

Paragraph 9:

B. Detailed Analysis

What is the thesis of this essay?

In which paragraph is it stated?

“The intellectuals of the twenties, the ‘sad young men,’ as F. Scott Fitzgerald called them, cursed their luck but didn’t die; escaped but voluntarily returned; flayed the Babbitts but loved their country, and in so doing gave the nation the liveliest, freshest, most stimulating writing in its literary experience.”

The Roaring Twenties or the Jazz Age A period of sustained economic prosperity and

the distinctive cultural edge. Large-scale use of automobiles, telephones,

motion pictures, electricity, unprecedented industrial growth, accelerated consumer demand and aspirations, and significant changes in lifestyle and culture.

Jazz music blossomed. Jazz and dancing rose in popularity.

The flapper redefined modern womanhood. The spirit of the Roaring Twenties was marked by

a general feeling of discontinuity associated with modernity and a break with traditions. 

What is the function of the first paragraph? What is the focus of the first sentence?

“the Revolt of the Younger Generation”.

sensationally romanticized:

treated in a passionate, idealized manner to shock, thrill and rouse the interest of people

The so-called Revolt of the Younger Generation in the 1920s has been more commented upon than all the other aspect and has been treated very romantically and sensationally.

Nostalgic: bittersweet longing for things, persons, or situations of the past. (Both nostalgic and curious are transferred epithets. They really modify “the middle aged” and “the young” respectively).

Speakeasy: A place where alcoholic drinks are sold illegally, esp. such a place in the US during Prohibition (the period 1920-1933).

Puritan morality: The word “Puritan” has been used to denote a strictness in morality that verges on intolerance, e.g. thrifty, diligent, never indulgent in pleasure. They believe the seven deadly sins: greed, envy, loath, gluttony, wrath, luxury and pride. Strict puritans even regarded drinking, gambling and participation in theatrical performances as punishable offences.

Puritanism Puritanism began during the reign of Elizabeth (1558-1603) when Ⅰ

some English Protestants objected to Catholic elements in worship. They also charged that bishops reinforced royal control over the church; Puritans believed that the church should be independent from the Crown. They also wanted to end abuses such as plural office holding, absenteeism, and low standards for clergy. Puritans wished to “purify” the church by several means. They gathered like-minded people into independent “congregational” churches, some declaring separation from the Church of England and some remaining within it. Moderates advocated a policy or church structure called Presbyterianism, as implemented by John Knox in Scotland. In the 1630s under Archbishop Laud, congregational churches were repressed. Thousands of puritans left England, and their “great migration” contributed to the colonial settlement of New England.

Naughty: mildly indecent, improper Jazzy: (a party) playing jazz music Flask-toting: always carrying a small, flattened contai

ner for liquor in the pocket. tote: (Americanism) carry, take

sheik: (Americanism) a masterful man to whom women are supposed to be irresistably attracted.

moral and stylistic vagaries: odd and eccentric dress and conduct.

flapper: (Americanism) in the 1920s, a young woman considered bold and unconventional in action and dress.

drugstore cowboy: (Americanism) a cowboy depicted in a Western who loafs in a drugstore; a person who gets their high by way of prescription drugs, most likely obtained illegally.

the degeneration of our jazzmad youth:

When was the book from which this essay was taken published?

1967

What term was used to apply to the young people in the 1960s?

The Beat Generation: a counter-culture movement, a revolt against the frightened, conservative political mood, against the conventional values concerning sex, religion, education, politics, and the American way of life in general, against the greedy, money-seeking “respectable life” of the dominant middle class.

…we had reached an international stature… we have become a world power so we can no

longer, on our action, just follow the principles of right and wrong as accepted in our own country, nor can we remain isolated geographically protected by the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. In other words, the U. S. can no longer pursue a policy of isolationism.

…to reach international stature: to develop and grow into a nation respected and esteemed by all other nations in the world.

Victorian Age

Victoria (1819-1901), queen of the U. K. of Great Britain and Ireland from 1837-1901. During her reign, Great Britain reached the height of its power; it built a great colonial empire and enjoyed tremendous industrial expansion at home. The time of her reign is often called the Victorian Age.

Victorian gentility

excessive or affected refinement and elegance attributed to Victorian England.

In any case, America could not avoid casting aside its middle-class respectability and affected refinement.

Impersonality: the quality or state of not involving personal feelings or the emotions

room: suitable opportunity; occasion; scope After WWI, America became a highly

industrialized country. There were big successful factories operating everywhere. Business became huge corporations devoid of any human feelings and the ruthless desire to dominate was exercised on a large scale. In this new atmosphere, the principles of polite, courteous and considerate behavior and conduct that were formed in a quieter and less competitive age (before WWI) could no longer exist.

The war acted merely as a catalytic agent in this breakdown of the Victorian social structure…

• What is compared to a catalytic agent? The war only helped to speed up the

breakdown of the Victorian social structure What does a pattern of mass murder refer to? when the war was over, the young people

used their newly released violent energies, both in Europe and America, to destroy the 19th century society that was getting old and becoming unacceptable

What moral responsibility should the young man take in the face of the changing world?

What kind of moral stance should these young men really take?

What kind of attitude or behavior pattern did these young men actually adopt?

But at the same time it was tempted … immorality

in America at least, the young people were strongly inclined to shirk their responsibilities. They pretended to be worldly-wise, drinking and behaving naughtily. They pretended to live like unconventional artists or poets, breaking the moral code of the community. In America the young people did not seriously take up the responsibility of changing the traditional customs of society, instead they live unconventional lives and by drinking and behaving indecently in many ways, they broke the moral code of the community.

Sophistication: the state of being artificial, world-wise, urbane

Bohemianism is the practice of an unconventional lifestyle, often in the company of like-minded people, with few permanent ties, involving musical, artistic, or literary pursuits.

• What is the relationship between this sentence and the following ones?

• Faddishness: the following of fads

What did these youth do?

much-publicized orgies

wild, riotous, licentious merrymakings which were often and widely reported in newspapers and magazines

They went in for all kinds of fads, spent money freely on transitory pleasures and momentary novelties. They pretended to be wildly joyful and experimented with all kinds of sensations, including those produced by sex, drugs, alcohol and perversions.

Greenwich Village: often referred to by locals as simply “the

Village”, is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan, New York City. Greenwich Village has been known as an artists' haven, the Bohemian capital, the cradle of the modern LGBT movement, and the East Coast birthplace of both the Beat and '60s counterculture movements. It had long been widely but unfavorably known for its unconventional and nonconforming way of life.

… the much-publicized orgies… escapism. The much publicized wild and riotous life of th

e intellectuals in Greenwich village and their defiant open declarations of their motives and intentions provided the young people with a philosophy that could justify their escapism.

Spree: a short period of time doing sth that one enjoys, especially spending money or drinking.

Party: metaphor, comparing the wild, riotous living of the escapists to a party and the escapists to drunken revelers.

• What does the crash of the world economic structure refer to ?

the Great Depression

Why did the young men feel so eager to join enlist and join the war?

What popular misconceptions did these young men have concerning warfare.

• the stalemate of 1915-1916: the stalemate on the Western Front in Europe.

How many subjects are there in the secondsentence of paragraph 5?

• the increasing insolence of Germany: the sinking of the Lusitania, a liner under British registration, by a German submarine on May 7, 1915. In the sinking 1195 persons lost their lives, of whom 128 were US citizens.

• our official reluctance to declare our status as a belligerent

that our government was reluctant to declare war

Jingoism: Extreme patriotism. Early uses of the term in the US were connected to the foreign policy of Theodore Roosevelt, who was frequently accused of jingoism.

our young men joined the armies of foreign countries to fight in the war

our young men began to enlist under foreign flags

John Dos Passos’s U.S.A.: a trilogy, composed of the 42nd Parallel, 1919, and The Big Money, in which Dos Passos presented the first three decades of the 20th century in America.

What does the strife of 1861-1865 refer to?

The American Civil War of 1861-1865 was always portrayed in the movies and in stories as a highly sentimental drama (nostalgic to people from the southern states)

• The one-hundred-days’ fracas with Spain:

The war with Spain in 1898 always ended in a scene in a movie showing the one-sided victory at Manila or the Americans charging up San Juan Hill (near the city of Santiago de Cuba in east Cuba).

Furthermore, many speakers at high school meetings told the boys that hard life of the war would help to form their character. These speakers convinced many boys, who were sensible in many other respects, that fighting in the European war would be of great value to them personally, in addition to being idealistic and exciting.

Furthermore, there were…idealistic and exciting.

pompous and patriotic speeches made during the Fourth of July celebrations

Fourth-of-July bombast

Why do the authors choose the phrase had been guilty of ?

outgrown town and families

could no longer adapt themselves to lives in their home towns or their families

What literary device is used in this sentence?

to resume living and behaving simply and innocently as the former Victorian social structure required them to do

resume the pose of self-deceiving Victorian innocence

The sodden, Napoleonic cynicism of Versailles: the stupid cynicism of the victorious allies in Versailles who acted as cynically as Napoleon did.

The hypocritical do-goodism of prohibition: Prohibition which the lawmakers hypocritically assumed would be good for the people.

The smug patriotism of the war profiteers: the self-satisfied patriotic air of the people who make unfairly large profits in the war.

The writers and artists living in Greenwich Village set the example which other young intellectuals throughout the country followed.

Greenwich Village set the pattern.

their minds and pens inflamed against war, Babbittry, and “Puritanical” gentility,

What literary device is used in this sentence?

metonymy

it was only natural that hopeful young writers whose minds and writings were filled with violent anger against war, Babbittry, and “Puritanical” gentility, should come in great numbers to live in Greenwich Village, the traditional artistic center.

Babbitry: (George Babbit, title character of a satirical novel (1922) by Sinclair Lewis) A smugly conventional person interested chiefly in business and social success and indifferent to cultural values.

Matchstick and conflagration: Metaphor: misdeeds compared to

matchsticks, the revolt of the young compared to a conflagration.

Many young people began to intensify and spread this revolt of the young by their own misdeeds (breaking the law and living unconventional lives)

“fast”: living in a reckless, wild, dissipated way. “fast” set: a group of wild reckless people

What was the response of these true intellectuals towards the reckless, wild, unconventional lives of the young people?

Why did these true intellectuals choose to emigrate to Europe?

smug, self-satisfied, conformist in cultural matters

boobery

repeated, central idea; theme burden

the burden of a speech

The main theme of all the articles in the book was that people were not paying serious attention to what the most gifted and intelligent people (the young intellectuals) were saying,

The burden of the volume was…being ignored,

Journalism is only a tool that helps businessmen to make money

Journalism was a mere adjunct to moneymaking

to strive to get all the material things one’s neighbors or associates have

The Overall Structure of the Article Introduction (para. 1)

The interest many people hold today in the 20s

Support and development (para. 2-9)

The revolt of the young people was a logical outcome of conditions in the age (para. 2)

The inevitable rejection of Victorian gentility & traditional values (para. 3-4)

The rebellion started with WWI (para. 5-6)

The pattern set by Greenwich Village (para. 7-8)

The response of the true intellectuals (para. 9)

Conclusion (para. 10-11)

The thesis of the whole essay

What piece of writing is this article? The essay is a piece of expository writing

by two American writers explaining a certain period in American literary and social history. It focuses especially on the attitudes and revolt of the young people who returned from WWI disappointed and disillusioned. However, they were never lost because they were also very creative and productive and as this essay says: “gave the nation the liveliest, freshest, most stimulating writing in its literary experience.