Mid-Term Autobiography and the Second World War.

The Second World War gave rise to a number of mid-term autobiographies that sought to diagnose the social, political, and psychological causes of modern violence. This essay considers these texts as generational autobiographies that seek to analyze the roots of such violence by revisiting an idealized childhood innocence, which is terminated by the outbreak of the Great War, by the fascistic elements of public school education, and by the emergence of a polarized political climate in Europe. Collectively, these autobiographies serve as a both a definition of, and epitaph for, the authors' generation, and make this form of life-writing a significant part of the canon of World War II literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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