'We were both under a strain:' Irony in 1930's modernism and mass culture

Irony is often perceived as the aesthetic device that separates modernism from history and mass culture. As our understandings of modernism change, so must our understandings of modernist irony. This dissertation proposes to re-evaluate modernist irony in light of the specific historical conditions of the 1930s, and the irony produced by such popular forms as the anarchic comedy, the gangster film, the hard-boiled narrative and the noir film. This dissertation will argue that modernist irony, far from separating modernism from its broader culture, serves as the aesthetic element that links it to that culture. Each chapter proposes to read a work of 1930s American modernist fiction in light of a specific form of mass culture.The introduction begins with a brief reading of William Faulkner's Sanctuary, before outlining my theoretical underpinnings that guide this dissertation. Chapter one, "Irony Remediated," reads Nathanael West's The Day of the Locust in light of the Marx Brothers film A Night at the Opera, viewing the ironies of both works as a response to the onset of mass-mediated culture. Chapter two, "The Irony of Design," reads Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom! in context of the irony produced by the 1931 gangster film, Little Caesar and sees both as evidence of the historical trauma brought about by the Depression. Chapter three reads Raymond Chandler's Farewell My Lovely and Richard Wright's Native Son in context of one another. This chapter argues that both works use realistic narrative paradigms to critique both Depression-era class arrangements, as well as the specific conditions brought about by the cultural divide. Chapter four, "Irony and the Dissolution of Boundaries," reads a single text, Chandler's The Big Sleep, as it evolves from a hard-boiled narrative, to a film script, to a noir film. This chapter acts in lieu of a conclusion because it argues that noir represents a fusion of modernist and popular irony. In total, this project examines modernist irony as a contextual articulation: as an expression of both aesthetic design as well as historical significance.