Themes in Lost Generation's Writings

The "Lost Generation" defines a sense of moral loss or aimlessness apparent in literary figures during the 1920s.

World War I seemed to have destroyed the idea that if individuals acted virtuously, good things would happen.

Many good, young men went to war and died, or returned home either physically or mentally wounded (for most, both), and their faith in the moral guideposts that had earlier given them hope, were no longer valid...they were "Lost."

Themes of the Lost Generation include, but are not limited to the following

discontentment
aimlessness
frustration with American society
disdain for conventional morality
idea that wealth leads to immorality

Writers of the Lost Generation

T. S. Elliot

Ezra Pound

Gertrude Stein

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Earnest Hemmingway

The characters found in the writings of the Lost Generation authors often had either

an illusion of happiness that hid a sadness and loneliness

OR

led unfulfilling and aimless lives