What makes Hemingway a modernist?
In modernist fiction, characters are generally on some type of quest. They are preparing to recompose themselves, to live all they can, to find meaning in a disordered and confused world. The Victorian age of rationality and progress has been replaced by a loosely moralistic generation easily seduced by transitory pleasures, a generation with very little ambition, motivation, or regard for the consequences of their actions. What most modernist writers are trying to do (including Hemingway) is to show the surface disorder of their surroundings, but also to imply that there exits a certain underlying unity. They attempt to depict the various ways in which their characters can become honorable and dignified in a dishonorable and undignified world. In regards to content, modernist writers are attempting to make their work new, bold, and original.
