Hope and Hopelessness in Literature - Essay Example

Germans heir feelings of nationalistic pride would have been greatly damaged following the humiliation of losing a war they perceived to be a draw.  Germans were well aware that the rest of the world looked upon them with contempt and as the losers, giving them plenty of motivation for a new fight.  This is why it can be said that the treaty was largely responsible for the Nazi’s rise to power and the inevitable violence of WWII. 

Literature and Dysfunction

A great deal of the literature of this period remains focused on the individual and his or her attempts to discover some form of meaning in their life.  For example, Luitov in “My First Goose” attempts to find his place in a crazy world by abandoning his faith and his homeland in order to become one of the Cossacks.  In the crazy world of the uneducated and rough Cossacks, though, he remains empty and unfulfilled because he is quickly branded an outsider and teased.  His attempts to join the men in his rough treatment of the old woman and her goose also leave him unfulfilled because he is already feeling the ‘grating’ in his heart indicating that he has retained more of his family’s belief system than he had cared to admit.  These stories typically illustrate that while we may not have much control over our lives or be provided with a world that makes any sense, we still have an element of individual control over the choices we make.  Our reactions to the results of these choices help us to define who we are as people and help us develop our own sense of meaning.

Postwar

The Occupation of Japan went smoothly because the Americans didn’t try to come in and completely re-seat the Japanese administrative structures.  However, things weren’t necessarily all that smooth.  Postwar Japan was devastated by the firebombing, living spaces were scarce and fuel and food were even less plentiful.  When the U.S. went into Iraq, though, one of the first things they did was to remove the existing governmental structures and place embargoes on trade items.  A great deal of the country’s development since the war has been large as a result of their own efforts and intelligent approaches to economics.  By contrast, China, which kept itself closed off from the Western world to a larger degree, has a ways to go still before it can catch up. 
 
Reflections on Literature
            All of the stories read in this block of readings featured main characters who had lost a great deal of hope and meaning in life.  The reasons for this hopelessness are different in each individual story, just as the circumstances of the characters are different.  While some are directly attributed to the war and war-like adventures, others, like “Amy Foster,” are simply stories of a loss of joy in life as Amy Foster loses her sense of love and joy in her marriage and her husband discovers his distress that she has suddenly turned against him, directly refuting his love and devotion.  Although the laugher’s job is to sound joyous and full of glee, this laughter is hollow and the man himself points out how his regular life lacks any true sense of joy.  His hollow feeling is so complete as to have affected his wife, who used to like to laugh but doesn’t laugh anymore.  The similarities between the stories are significant because they demonstrate the prevailing attitudes of society during this period of time.  The differences help to illustrate the different ways in which the authors and cultures envisioned their futures.