Blake+G

1. Modernism is by definition, a modern character or quality of thought, expression, or technique. In other words modernism is breaking the mold of the old ways of thinking and acting, and updating them. To be modern is to be progressive. Old ways belong back in the old days. Modernism is the way that the world moves forward. The modernistic movement may have been defined at a certain moment, but the world has always been modernistic. That is how the world and we as human beings have progressed and become more than what we once were. Through revolutionizing the ideas of science, religion, and social ideals we have been and more than likely always will be a modernistic world. As long as we move forward with newer better ideas for change we will be the ideal form of modernism.

-Blake Gray

2.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot is a very modernistic poem. The part of modernism that is more noticeable to some is the constant progression and enlightenment of people, but few recognize what else makes up modernists ideals. Realizing the importance of ones own inward struggles as opposed to concentrating on the struggles of the world around them. T.S. Eliot makes it painfully obvious, the feeling of ‘Alfred Prufrock’. His inward struggles and pain from rejection. “ In the room the women come and go” (Eliot pg 1). Women constantly rejected him and this spurred his feelings of hurt. “But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed, though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter” (Eliot pg 3). This poem constantly focuses on the inward struggle of the one and does not focus on the world with out. All very modern thoughts and inward struggles.

-Blake Gray

3. Existentialism; a group of attitudes that emphasizes existence rather than essence. Existentialists are often considered “selfish” because they are constantly concerned with their own comfort and their own inward feelings; they do not seem to care or feel for the outside world’s problems or opinions. For existentialists existence out weighs essence. Existence is the fact or state of living or having a purpose; essence on the other hand states that anyone can be placed into a larger whole, making a person loose their identity to the whole. While existentialism does come off as quite selfish it really is telling people to break out of their own personal cages and do what they want when they want to do it, regardless of what other people say or think. -Blake Gray