Lost Patriarchs: The Destruction of Traditional Masculinity in Modern Society Portrayed in Tender is the Night, The Sound and the Fury, and The Sun Also Rises

Abstract

Much of the most well-known modern literature seems to directly focus on gender roles and gender issues, a theme that is present in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender is the Night, William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, and Earnest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises. In my research project, I will compare and examine each author’s similar portrayal of changing gender roles and how these changes contributed to the formation of the notorious “lost generation.” Using a combination of information from various scholarly articles and a close analysis of each primary text, I will specifically focus on these three modern novelist’s insinuation of how changing ideas of masculinity and femininity, brought about by WWI and modernization, affected the lives of the younger men during the time period; through the symbolism, language, and other literary devices surrounding their primary characters, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, and Hemingway indicate the changing idea of a man’s role in family and society as a critical catalyst in the loss of identity and purpose associated with members of the “lost generation.”