Ernest Hemingway: The society which produced him, his response to that society, and comparative elements in the later works of French existentialist authors

America entered the twentieth century firmly believing in a well-ordered universe where God's "justice" prevailed in securing Mankind's roots in His universe. Man's sense of security survived while there was peace, but World War I threw Americans and the world into a conflict which would bury their security in the caskets of millions of young men. Although American lost only a relative few in the total destruction, the internal social changes created by the War and the development of balance-of-power politics internationally weakened her grasp of nineteenth century morality. Rural Americans, who formed a substantial majority during the first twenty years of this century, were not easily shaken from their nineteenth century beliefs in "justice" and "morality." The roots in the land were deep for the Midwestern framer, the Western rancher and the Southern landowner; God was a fundamental part of their elemental existence.