Modernist Open Endings
Modernist Open Endings

Summary/Abstract: The following article intends to offer a brief overview of the concept of open-endings in the context of Modernism and Postmodernism in literature and the arts while detailing aspects of it with references to specific works of literature or art. We shall try to illustrate how the idea and use of open endings in art reflect modern life’s new realities, with its complexities and contradictions, anxieties, and lack of meaning. The latest facts shaped by historical and social evolution and the traumatic experiences of two world wars doubled by the instalment of terrible tyrannies in the forms of communism and fascism transformed individuals and nations, obliterating prior beliefs and complements in favour of meaninglessness, absurdity, and anxieties. The literary and artistic word reflect, as always, the transformations mentioned above and concerns, but this time they seem to lack answers. The perplexing and innumerable questions posed by our modern and contemporary world and the diversity and multitude of attitudes, ideologies, and opinions of today make(render) it impossible to reach even a very loose and fragile consensus. The fragility of the modern world is the one that keeps us away from close endings. In such a volatile world, any firm conclusion would prove fleeting.

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