Sign of the Times: The Lost Generation - Essay Example

Other developments such as women’s suffrage than the financial boom which ended in a market crash in 1929 leading to the Great Depression made the generation traumatic. Traumatized by the war (with some becoming suicidal due to PSTD), working in odd jobs such as sweatshops and selling newspapers and without diversion due to the Prohibition movement (prohibition of alcohol) made this generation traumatic and perhaps this explains why this generation was called as the Lost Generation. Thus this generation looked for an outlet for what they lacked.

In economic opportunity due to the sweatshops, they are accustomed to, entrepreneurs were born and so was the rise of individualism and spirit of entrepreneurship. Immigrants flocked into the United States to try their luck with the American Dream.So the Lost Generation looked for outlets in their entertainment. Thus their entertainment was described as pure escapism which reflected the generation’s feeling of instability and displacement during their time. Traumatized with war, overworked in factories, stressed and poor, people then looked for an escape from their hard life and ugly reality.

This explains why John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath were adopted in the big screen as it talked about a family’s “migration of the Dust Bowl of Oklahoma to the agricultural fields of California”. People were able to relate to this poignant screen as most people shared that kind of life at some point or another. Then Scarlett O’Hara’s Gone With the Wind became popular as it encapsulated the Depression of the Lost Generation. It talked about the girl who endured poverty but still had the courage to say that “tomorrow is another day”.

But what really caught the spirit of the time was the movie The Wizard of Oz. This movie may be a fantasy movie where the main character of Dorothy’s migrated from reality to fantasy, “as objects signifying permanence (picket fences, cows, and family figures) pass Dorothy’s house during the tornado that delivers her to Oz, but this tells the escapist mindset of the time. This movie became not only a box office but also a legend with so many remakes because its original provided a relief to the generation who suffered.

It provided the perfect escape from the ugly reality of the Lost Generation through the fantasy of Dorothy and the dreamy world of Oz that even generations after its first showing adopted the film as their own version of escape from their own ugly world and reality.