Defining Moments In John Steinbeck's 'The Silent Generation'

The Silent Generation Every generation has their own specific defining moment that makes everyone in the future look back on them in a certain way. Each generation is judged and examined by how they respond to that one defining moment, and in many cases are ripped apart because they didn’t live up to the expectations set out for them. These defining moments can be large scale for some like a World War or the Great Depression, but for others they go seemingly unnoticed until way after that generation is seemingly nonexistent. Each generation can be summed up by their defining moment, the Silent Generation (1925-1945) for example stepped up during one of the most trying times in history. They will forever be remembered by how they responded …show more content…
Most of whom didn’t, as previously mentioned, realize the enormity of what they were taking part in during their time and for the future as well. Every single person involved with the war during their lifetime is viewed as a hero to all and will always be for the coming future for what they sacrificed for the rest of the nation. This generation isn’t seen as the greatest solely because of their contribution in the violence of the last 100 years but rather the other events they endured as well. For many, they were around during one of the peaks of the nation, the roaring 20’s, and were able to see the nation at its finest. Then came hardship that no one could have predicted, the Great Depression, which was not as violent in any sense as WW2 but was still a defining event during the era. “By 1933, when the baby born in 1920 was entering teenage years, the promise of that early childhood was shattered by crashing world economies”. The silent generation suffered through some of the biggest hardships of the 20th century and went on to be seen as the Greatest Generation by many of the people around today. Not …show more content…
Every single one of the people in that generation will hope to leave a mark on history the way that some of the greats that came before them did. However for an entire generation of people to step up together and throw aside their own personal hopes and dreams in order to make a collaborative mark on society is a feat that will live on in history forever. The way these men and women gave up everything including their lives in many cases in service of something better, something that they all believed was worth not backing away from. Is something that is truly incredible and changed the way the American people are viewed from that time on and shaped what all the generations after them aspired to