What is the significance of a child, or a child-like character, in modernist literature?
That’s a good question. And there are so many angles to it that it really becomes a piece by piece issue, there isn’t any overarching symbolism that I’m aware of. I guess the first thing to establish is that literature before the mid to late 1700s is strikingly absent of children. They weren’t seen as humans or had no social importance. That has changed over the course of history and they became more prominent as characters in Romantic, victorian, realist, modernist, etc periods. So, that’s one reason a child may pop up. Children were suddenly important, with valid view points and opinions. Children in Modernist lit are often used to aid irony as well. They relate the world in black and white terms without the justifications adults use for their actions, so it sort of highlights how silly it all is. When the boys begin a war over meat and myths we can all see that as silly, but when the military captain comes to pick them up it sends a deeper message home. The childlike adult has many
