Student Essay on What It Means "to Be" to the Modernist

William Faulkner and Richard Wright are compared in their modernist search for identity,in their stories "Barn Burning" and "The Boy Who Was Almost A Man."

Many modernist writers of the twentieth century focused their works on the concepts of identity and alienation. These artists focused their attention on the notions of self, and what it meant to be an individual. They pondered over ideas of the individual experience and what consequences our social, political, or historical environment really has on a soul, while trying to determine what the true self really consisted of. The concept of identity was very important to undertake, and these concepts are still contemplated today. Modernist authors force the reader to take a look within themselves and question who they really are, and why. Two authors that undertook these questions with great skill, would be William Faulkner and Richard Wright. These two authors are excellent examples of the modernist movement, because they experimented with identity in different.....