The Lost Generation lived their prime in the interwar years – especially the 1920s – a time that can be considered ‘in-between’. They were, in fact, a perfect incarnation of it.
It was a World War because it directly or indirectly affected nations and populations worldwide. Though less obvious than those of the Second World War, the Great War’s repercussions were felt by people across the globe.
Most young people in the 1920s did feel lost, whether they had experienced war or not. They floated in a world they didn’t know how to navigate. Not a few responded to the allure of the returning hero’s myth.
Post-WWI society – and particularly European societies – was drenched in a culture of death. In Europe, basically, no family had remained unscathed by loss and bereavement. Coping with this became a primary need throughout the 1920s and even into the 1930s.
Besides the many poems and stories composed by soldiers in the trenches, a particular kind of literature became canonical after the war. The Lost Generation is the protagonist of this interwar literature with its very own characteristics.
The Lost Generation’s relationship with anything other than the present was, at best, weird. They distrusted the future, but their relationship with the past was even more complex.
WWI profoundly innovated how men and women thought of themselves and of each other, yet it didn’t really shake their actual social roles.
Many similarities and yet many differences exist between the Lost Generation’s experiences in America and Europe. Although several artistic movements were very relevant to this group, in Europe, the “Generation of the Trenches” included the entire population rather than just an artistic movement.
We often associate the 1920s Lost Generation with decadence. In fact, that was their way of intending life: a decadent, hedonistic quest for a deeper meaning.
There is no doubt that the Great War brought about unthinkable changes. Changes that worked at different levels and together caused an upheaval in all the societies and cultures involved in the conflict.
The Lost Generation is defined by their disillusionment, their broken dreams and their broken relationship with the past and the previous generations.
The Lost Generation was totally different from the previous generation. The Great War was the watershed between the old and the new world, and the Lost Generation was cast right in the middle.