Modernism implies historical discontinuity, a sense of alienation, of loss, and of despair.
It holds to the philosophy of determinism and believes man is controlled by his instincts or by his social and economic environment and circumstances. A chronicle, usually autobiographical, presenting the life story of a rascal of low degree engaged in menial tasks and making his living more through his wits than his industry. Episodic in nature, the picaresque novel is, in the usual sense of the term, structureless.