The Age of Interrogation & Anxiety or the Modern Age General Characteristics of the Age The first half of the twentieth century is one of the most turbulent eras in the history of English literature. It marks a sharp and clear departure from the self-complacency, compromise and stability of the Victorian period. The transition from the old to the new, from blind faith to rational thinking is very interesting. The following traits distinguish the modern era: (i) Anxiety and Interrogation: The twentieth century is called the Age of Interrogation and Anxiety because the scientific revolution and changing social, moral, political and economic conditions have shaken man's faith in the authority of Religion and Church and the established order. He does not accept anything unless it is tested on the touchstone of reason. The persistent mood of scepticism and interrogation has increased disproportionately in want of a new set of values. Moreover, modern industrial and technical progress has given birth to the spirit of competition. Everybody wants to come out successful in the rat race but only a few are crowned with laurels. This failure coupled with the complexities of modern life has resulted in frustration, anxiety and cynicism. These tendencies recur in the literature of this period. (ii) Art For Life's Sake: At the turn of the new century came a number of writers who were sceptical in outlook and were not touched by reverence for custom and the established order. They rejected the doctrine of "art for art's sake". They evolved the new literary creed of "art for life's sake", or, at least, for the sake of the community. In the last decade of the nineteenth century a much stronger claim to be modern was made by Shaw with his socialism, H. G. Wells with his science fiction and Rudyard Kipling with his empire building and steam engines. The change of outlook in the beginning of the twentieth century was due to the growth of a restless desire to probe and question. Bernard Shaw, foremost among the heralds of the age, asserts that every dogma is superstition until it has been critically examined and consciously accepted, by the individual believer. He vigorously attacks the "old superstition of religion" and the "new superstition of science." The effect of his writing was to spread abroad for at least a generation "the interrogative habit of mind.‖ (iii) Growing Interest in the Poor and the Working Classes: The year 1900 marks "the beginning of the end of the supremacy of the middle classes, and middle-class standards of thought and writing. The sorry condition of the poor living along with the affluent sections of society aroused the desire to take collective action to improve the living conditions of the poor working classes. The poor were no more helpless creatures. They had grown conscious of their sad predicament. They posed a great challenge to the social conscience. They became the raw material of realistic novel and drama with or without purpose. The mid-Victorian writers, Dickens, Thackeray, Kingsley, Reade, Mrs. Gaskell etc. were critical of the injustice done to the poor working classes. But they were not profoundly critical of the fundamental bases of human life and society as were Shaw, Galsworthy and H. G. Wells. They merely anticipated the spirit of interrogation and rational inquiry. But the early twentieth century writers "put everything in every sphere of life to the question, and secondly, in the light of this scepticism, to reform, to reconstruct—to accept the new age as new, and attempt to mould it by conscious,