Question

Trace Realistic literature to Valery’s anxiety and Sasson’s irony in the light of events in Europe. What was Europe like before World War I? Afterward? Your answer should be at least 250 words.

Answer 1

In 1914 the superpower that dominated the world, controlling the seas and ruling over a global empire of colonies, dominions and dependencies—Britain—was being challenged by a rival that was overtaking it economically and building up armaments on land and sea to assert its claim for a “place in the sun”—Germany. All of this is alarmingly close to the situation today, when America’s global supremacy is increasingly being challenged by the rise of China.

The ideological rivalries between the superpowers now and then look strikingly similar, too, at first glance: on the one hand, Britain then and America now, with their democratic political systems that make governments responsible to legislatures and removable by popular elections; on the other, Germany then and China now, with appointed and irremovable governments responsible only to themselves. A free press and open public on the one hand contrast with a controlled public sphere on the other, in which censorship and the trappings of a police state in effect muzzle the government’s most trenchant critics.

And of course there was, and is, the baleful influence of nationalism, with China’s sabre-rattling over disputed islands today yielding little in rhetorical vehemence to the kaiser’s bombastic speeches asserting German claims in Africa and the Middle East before 1914. The clash of ideologies and religions was evident before 1914, just as it is today, and in both cases concentrated on trouble spots in specific parts of the world.

Currently it is the conflicts in the Middle East we have to worry about, with a vicious civil war in Syria between rival Islamic factions standing proxy for the rivalry between Shia Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia, while an additional element of danger is provided by Israel, with its nuclear arsenal, and again Iran, with its persistent attempts to build one. China and Russia are lining up behind one side while Nato and the US line up behind the other.

Answer 2

Valery's anxiety and Sasson's irony opened peoples eyes up to change. Long ago Europe thought the world was a peaceful place, but then everything changed when the Serbians attacked, then the two nations attacked each other and drew in others as well.