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Memory Hunger: A Geocritical Study Of Nostalgia And The Glorification Of Paris In Works Written By Lost Generation Writers During The Interwar Period., Gabrielle Vatthanatham

English Undergraduate Honors Theses

The literary representations of Paris in the works of the Lost Generation communicate a nostalgia, longing for, and glorification of an irrecoverable past. The romanticization and abstraction of the setting of Paris in the works of the Lost Generation elucidates the emotional situations of their characters as they contemplate the nature of their existence. The abstraction of Paris liberates the city from its physical locale and demonstrates the repressional mechanisms of anchoring and sublimation outlined by existential philosopher Peter Wessel Zapffe in his essay “The Last Messiah.” In the connection of Paris with Zapffe’s existential theory, Paris becomes, for certain …