12
PARTISAN REVIEW
medical terminology may have begun merely as another manifestation
of the love of new jargons, and it is probably true that Clara Bow's
sexual allure was called "It" because scenario writers had heard about
Freud's concept of the Id. But it is no longer merely a vogue, it is a
vision, however distorted and poorly understood, of human nature
and human relationships, which reached a hilarious peak at that
moment in a film when Betty Grable, Clara Bow's apostolic successor,
successfully explained her husband's trials and difficulties as caused
by the fact that her father-in-law was her husband's Super-Ego!
THE MOUNTING AND ENDLESS CRISIS
Clearly the social origins of the sense of crisis which shows
itself in so many different ways must include the depression, the two
World Wars and the fear of a third war with Russia.
If
one has
expected pie or at least manna in the sky, the dropping of atom
bombs becomes an apocalyptic transformation of the blue. And
if
one expected to be rich and successful, two luxurious promises of the
American Dream, one can hardly help but be terrified when riches
and success bring greater conflict and unhappiness, instead of gratifi–
cation and peace. To have hopes which may be disappointed is a
possibility which one naturally envisages and for which one has braced
oneself. But to find that the overwhelming fulfillment of hope and
desire leave one in disillusion or despair is one of the most demoraliz–
ing of experiences. It is unexpected, and one cannot be prepared for it.
The fact is that one has been prepared against it in the sense that
virtue was always supposed to triumph, wickedness was to be punished,
and after the struggle against the powers of evil concluded in an
inevitable victory, one was supposed to be happy in this life and even
more happy in the next one. The first World War was supposed to
end all wars; the second World War was viewed with more skepti–
cism, but still it was supposed to secure peace for a long period of
time, and victory was supposed to bring with it the annihilation of
totalitarian regimes.
1
But the postwar period quickly assumed the
appearance and generated the atmosphere of a new pre-war period.
1.
"We are all the last generation," Adolf Hitler might have remarked to
Gertrude Stein or Pablo Picasso in Paris in May, 1940. Gertrude Stein said to
Hemingway after the first World War: "You are all a lost generation."
