Disillusionment (redirected from disenchantment)

Disillusionment

Adams, Nick

loses innocence through WWI experience. [Am. Lit.: “The Killers”]

Angry Young Men

disillusioned postwar writers of Britain, such as Osborne and Amis. [Br. Lit.: Benét, 37]

Blaine, Amory

world-weary youth, typical of the lost generation that finds life unfulfilling. [Am. Lit.: This Side of Paradise]

Chardon, Lucien

(de Rubempré) young poet realizes he is not destined for success. [Fr. Lit.: Balzac Lost Illusions in Magill II, 595]

Chuzzlewit, Martin

swindled, becomes disillusioned with Americans. [Br. Lit.: Martin Chuzzlewit]

de Lamare, Jeanne

heartbroken by her husband’s neglect and the discovery of his infidelities. [Fr. Lit.: Maupassant A Woman’s Life in Magill I, 1127]

Dodsworth, Sam

disillusioned with wife, European tour, and American situation. [Am. Lit.: Dodsworth]

Eden, Martin

attains success as a writer but loses desire to live when isolated from former friends and disenchanted with new ones. [Am. Lit.: Martin Eden]

Journey to the End of the Night

exposing the philosophy of post-war disillusionment. [Fr. Lit.: Journey to the End of the Night, Magill I, 453–455]

Kennaston, Felix

learns in middle age that his life of romantic dreams was baseless. [Am. Lit.: The Cream of the Jest in Magill I, 168]

Krasov, Kuzma Ilich

frustrated writer considers life complete waste. [Russ. Lit.: The Village]

Loman, Willy

salesman victimized by own and America’s values. [Am. Lit.: Death of a Salesman]

Lost Generation

intellectuals and aesthetes, rootless and disillusioned, who came to maturity during World War I. [Am. Lit.: Benét, 600]

March, Augie

“everyone got bitterness in his chosen thing.” [Am. Lit.: The Adventures of Augie March]

Melody, Cornelius

a failing tavern-keeper, flamboyantly boasts of his past. [Am. Drama: Eugene O’Neill A Touch of the Poet in Benét, 737]

Mysterious Stranger, The

naive youth is convinced by the devil that morals are false, God doesn’t exist, and there is no heaven or hell. [Am. Lit.: Benét, 697]

O’Hanlon, Virginia

(1890–1971) N.Y. Sun editorial dispels her disillusionment about Santa Claus (1897). [Am. Hist.: Rockwell, 188]

Pococurante

wealthy count who has lost his taste for most literature, art, music, and women. [Fr. Lit.: Candide]

Rasselas

prince and his companions search in vain for greater fulfillment than is possible in their Happy Valley. [Br. Lit.: Rasselas in Magill I, 804]

Smith, Winston

clerk loses out in totalitarian world. [Br. Lit.: 1984]

Webber, George

finds his native Southern town has degenerated morally and that his idealized, romantic Germany is corrupted. [Am. Lit.: Thomas Wolfe You Can’t Go Home Again]