Social and Culture Changes in Literature After World War One

Basically, the period of the First World War served as a defining point not only to the European nations but to the whole world. The period had a massive effect on the literary and cultural sensibilities of a generation. New waves of literary output had been spawned out by the war particularly on the several attempts made by the literature to successfully express the horrors of the trench incident. Most of the literature shifted their focus to communicate the dangers and realities of war, especially to the audience back at home. Indeed, literature was the only most suitable way for dissemination and articulation of the experience of the warfare that had just happened. Most of these structures were seen as preservation methods for power for the groups considered more privileged, means of artificially imposing order on the people, and a means of creating a violent, senseless and unjust world that would take advantage of the poor at the expense of the rich (Maier, 2015).

The First World War was naively and ironically considered as a great war that would end more wars. This neither happened anyway. It brought senseless sacrifices and devastation on the existing generations. The entire generation at the time was almost wiped out to leave a lost generation with no idea of living again. The period was referred to as the Jazz Age and this could show the excitement that came with the social convention changes in the world more particularly in the United States. The economy of the United States greatly boomed; there was a massive rise in the wages of Americans yet there was falling of the prices of commodities within the country. All these changes resulted in rapid increase in consumer consumption as well as raising the higher standards of living for the people.

However, there was less influence on the lives of most women but for the few who changed; there was a change in their modes of dressing, change in their actions and thoughts. All these changes were greatly encouraged by the literature in the society at the time. Their freedom could be seen in the change of their dressing. Literature works encouraged them into a redefinition of themselves in the society. They were given the freedom of voting and their status tremendously grew. Moreover, there were fewer men and this meant that women had to do jobs that were previously meant for men in the society. They could not succeed in taking over the responsibilities without the support of the writers and artists in literature who pushed them into giving more to the society (Brock, 2015).

There had been excessive control of the factories by the government during the war and this resulted in a backlash against the control of the government in the factories for the entire period of the war. The war had caused massive suffering of people in the factories. Surprisingly, the lower class had felt that the upper class had been responsible for their sufferings during the war. This explains the resent by the lower class in the society. The society did not respect those considered to be richer in the society, and the splendid dressing was no longer admired in the society. It is as well important to note how the literary responses suffered troughs and peaks of popularity. For instance, there had been a massive appeal for war literature in Germany but this was no longer the case after the end of the war.

Instead, there was a declining appeal for war literature in Germany. This was clearly evident in the kind of renewing interests in war literature. There was a new thirst for information. Therefore, there was heroism in most of the literature after the war. This boosted the morale of the people and the soldiers with an intention of avoiding much regret into their war actions as a country. In conclusion, the First World War simply shattered the sense of human progress that had previously dominated the much of the social and political culture in the world. All the leaps that had been perceived to be progressive in technology and medicine had failed to achieve peace and only ended up bringing destruction that led to massive loss of lives for quite little selfish gains.