Throughout modernist literature, we see the recurring appearance of the idea of children, although the contexts in which they appear are so vastly different.
So in Virginia Woolf's Orlando, a child resets the clock. Orlando discovers herself throughout the novel, going so far as transitioning from a man to a woman, to be able to fully understand all the layers of herself and recognize herself in every single one of them. She writes her life's work, "The Oak Tree," and the child is like the culmination of her life as an independent woman; and again, she transitions into a mother, rather than a writer, historian, adventurer. Orlando is presented as a timeless, infinite and eternal character, and the child is the way that Orlando is jutted back into reality and the 'normal' flow of time.
In D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover, the possibility of a child is mentioned throughout the book and Connie's life with Clifford. The way, however in which the child is mentioned with Clifford, is hugely impersonal, as a means to an end, rather than the representation of a woman's identity in society, as it is implied by the gender roles of the time. And yet, aside from the impersonality of Clifford's ideology of a child, Connie uses the idea and creation of a kid to be the motivation she needed to leave her shitty life with Clifford and pursue one of her own.
In Rebecca West's Return of the Soldier, there are two colossally different ways in which the appearance of a kid is presented. First, there is Kitty and Chris' dead kid, and then the birth of a second child. The first dead kid kind of serves the purpose of highlighting the pain and misery that the period of war brings into the lives of soldiers and everyone else the war reaches; while the second kid's birth is like the dawn of hope. The light of the end of the tunnel, if you may.
In Jean Rhys' Voyage in the Dark however, it is unclear whether the child is what gives Anna another shot at life, by giving her forced bed rest, which kind of forces you to think, since there is really nothing else to do; or whether it kills her. The two options have two very, very different connotations surrounding the appearance of the child in Anna's life.
However, in all of these different books and the different circumstances that the kids show up in, there really is no in between for the range of their effects on the characters' lives. It's either very good -- renewed hope in life, the incentive needed to get a better life, etc. -- or very bad -- death, misery, pain, endings. The 'good' side of the spectrum is the one that was mostly expected in considering the time period in which these books were written; where a woman's main goal in life was to get a husband and then have a kid with the man to really have the marriage locked down and further the continuance of your family line. The 'bad' side however, is one that appears because of the war, but also clashes with what I thought would have been the train of thought people developed after the war in regards to their families. I would have assumed that people -- mostly men -- would have been desperate to have kids and be reassured that their family name would live on with the kid, as well as their legacy, whatever that may be. However, it seems that with all the misery and pain that people went through during the war, the only thing some authors could think of was more pain and misery -- which is completely understandable, but still, no optimism? At all? I guess no. I mean, not really(?); because even the books and characters where the appearance of a child or the idea of having a kid would be considered to be on the 'good' side of the spectrum of effects, there is always still some kind of black -- or grey, if it's not that bad -- surrounding the circumstances towards the creation of the child.
So, I guess optimism was infinitely dead.
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