All quiet on the disillusioned front : the effects of World War II on American literature

Abstract

World War II created a noticeable cultural shift across the globe, the effects of which are still being felt today. What needs to be addressed is that an entire ocean separated one of the major contributors to the war—the United States—from the vast majority of the physical carnage. Soldiers had to go overseas, and citizens who remained at home were left with little more than propaganda and their own imaginations as means of interacting with the war. As a result, the United States had a remarkably different post-war experience than several European countries, and with a particularly different post-war cultural psychology. Because of social and geographical factors, the trauma inflicted on the United States by World War II had more of an underlying effect on the collective American conscious than had appeared in European countries, which manifested in some of the great literary works of the time.