EARLY 20TH CENTURY AND MODERNISM

SONS AND LOVERS BY D.H. LAWRENCE

Story: mrs. Morel has two children, Annie and William, when she becomes pregnant for
a third time. Her marriage to Walter has slowly deteriorated into an endless series of drunken
rows and she is less than happy at the prospect of having another baby, Paul, to bring up. (text
G8.)

However, when William dies, she channels her emotional attention and needs into Paul to such
an extent that his relationship with other women is jeopardised. When mrs. Morel dies of cancer,
Paul is tempted to commit suicide, but finds the strength to carry on living.

Writer info. D.H. Lawrence

The main subject of his work were relationships, emotions and conflict. In his novels and poems
he explored such themes as the effect of industrialism and rationalism on the common man, the
role of women in modern society, the conflict between prevailing morality and sex, and the
nature of the relationship between mother and son.

! Dialogue allows a character to reveal his views, attitudes and motives through his
own words. By listening closely to what a character says, a reader can deduce a great deal about
his personality.
 A ROOM WITH A VIEW BY E.M. FOSTER

E.M. Foster was one about 22 when he first went to Italy, but the year spent there was to provide
him with the subject matter for his first successful novel, A room with a view, in which a group
of English tourists meet at a pensione in Florence.

Story: Lucy Honeychurch goes on holiday to Italy with Miss Bartlett. In the pensione
Bertolini in Florence they meet Mr. Emerson, George Emerson, Mr Beebe and Mr Eager. The
emersons offer to change rooms with Lucy and Charlotte so that the ladies will have a view of
the city. Their offer is reluctantly accepted and, despite the differences in character and social
class between the guests, they all go on sightseeing tours of the city and surrounding hills
together.

During one of these outings, Lucy wanders off into the countryside, where she meets and is
passionately kissed by George. She returns to England and gets engaged to a local man. When
she learns, however, that George and his father have rented a house in the neighbourhood, she
remembers what happened in Italy and realises that she loves him, and not her prospective
husband. They get married and spend their honeymoon in Florence.

! Setting is often used as a mirror to reflect the psychological state of characters. A stormy
night may suggest confusion, a bright sunny day may reinforce a sense of joy and happines. If
the setting is being used this way, the descriptions are usually detailed or extensive, or the writer
uses particularly striking or poetic language.
 ARABY BY JAMES JOYCE

This is the story of a young boy who becomes infatuated with his friend’s sister. The protagonist
was looking forward to something very special but in the end is totally disillusioned.

! Epiphany refers to the showing of the Christ child to the Magi, and is used by Christian
philosophers to signify a manifestation of the presence of God in the world. Joyce adopted this
term and used it to refer to remarkable moments of sudden insight, when a trivial gesture,
external object or banal situation leads a character to a better understanding of himself
and the reality surrounding him. Joyce believed that the writer’s main task was to record these
special moments.

Epiphany has become the standard literary term to refer to the sudden revelation or self-
realisation which frequently occurs in modern poetry or fiction.

ULYSSES BY JAMES JOYCE

The novel’s structure is broadly based on that of Homer’s Odyssey, and each character
corresponds roughly to a character in the classic epic. All the events take place on the 16 th June,
1904 in Dublin.

Plot: Leopold Bloom, a middle-aged Jewish advertising agent, and Stephen Dedalus, a
student, go about their business in the city and meet in the evening. The book ends with a long
section in which Leopold’s wife, Molly, is lying in bed thinking. (text G11 – Yes).

Around this deceptively simple plot, Joyce builds up a comprehensive kaleidoscope of

characters and situations which are described in a constantly changing variety of styles and
registers.

! The term stream of consciousness was first used by the psychologist W. James to refer to
the unbroken flow of thought and awareness of human mind. As a literary term, it refers to
any attempt by a writer to represent the conscious and subconscious thoughts and impressions in
the mind of a character.

This technique takes the reader inside the narrating character’s mind, where he sees the world of
the story through the thoughts and senses of the focal character.
 At the beginning of 20th century, some authors developed a stream of consciousness
technique called interior monologue. The term is borrowed from drama, where ‘monologue’
refers to the part in a play where an actor expresses his inner thoughts aloud to the audience. The
interior monologue represents an attempt to transcribe a character’s thoughts, sensations and
emotions. In order to faithfully represent the rythm and flow of consciousness, the writer often
disregards traditional syntax, punctuation and logical connections. He does not intervine to guide
the reader or to impose narrative order on the often confused, and confusing mental processes.

T.S. ELIOT – THE LOVE SONG OF J. ALFRED PRUFOCK

The first decades of the 20th centuries were a time of great intellectual uncertainty and confusion,
in which writers were called on to invent forms of expression to explain a rapidly changing
world. T.S. Eliot answered this call.

In its complexity, his poetry reflects that of the modern world. In his work, man is
rootless and constantly searching for something that will give a sense of permanency to his
existence. This sensation of anchorless drifting is one of the main themes of The Love Song of J.
Alfred Prufock. The protagonist, through a series of images and reflections, presents his life. He
seems to be bored and detached frm a world he finds difficult to interact with.

! Conceit is a figure of speech which draws a comparison between two strikingly

different things. Conceits were particularly popular among the 17 th century Metaphysical poets,
who created effective comparisons by exploiting all areas of knowledge for the vehicles of their
metaphors and similes. The revival of interest in Metaphysical poetry in the 1920s led to the
reappearance of the conceit as a popular figure of speech..

T.S. Eliot’s comparison of the evening to a patient etherised upon the table is an example of a
Modernist conceit.
 TO THE LIGHTHOUSE BY VIRGINIA WOOLF

In an era when women were fighting to gain recognition for their role in society, V. Woolf
emereged as one of the finest writers in the language. To limit her achievement, however, to that
of influential literary spokesperson of the women’s movement is to totally undervalue her work.
Few other writers have managed to enter the inner depths of the character with such subtlety and
delicacy.

She follows the stream of consciousness or thought patterns of her characters so that the
reader feels he can see inside their minds. This approach to writing, which was also used by J.
Joyce, was to revolutionise novel writing.

Story: the book is divided into three parts.

In the first, The Window, the Ramsays are on holiday with their children an some friends,
including Lily Briscoe. All the action takes place over one day and much of it is seen through the
eyes and mind of Mrs Ramsay (Text G12 – Why Must they Grow Up?) . although there are many
digressions, as is common when the stream of consciousness technique is used, the main
unifying element of the plot is the children’s desire to go to the lighthouse the following day and
their father’s objection to going because the weather will not be good.

The second part, Time Passes, takes place after WW1. Mrs Ramsay is dead and Lily and Mr
Carmichael come to stay in the abandoned holiday home.

In the last section, The Lighthouse, Mr Ramsay and two of his children join Lily Briscoe and Mr
Carmichael. They realise their long-awaited dream of going to the lighthouse, while, on the
shore, Lily paints and thinks of her dead friend, Mrs Ramsay (text G13).

! Characterisation refers to the way in which a writer creates a character. A writer

may focus on external aspects of the character i.e. how he looks, what he says and what he does,
or he may concentrate on the character’s internal world, i.e. his thoughts, feelings and memories.

Techniques which are generally associated with extenal representation include dialogue,
description of actions and physical description. Internal representation may be achieved through
a variety of techniques, including limited first-person narration and interior monologue.

External representation is generally linked to more traditional literary forms, while internal
representation became popular during the experimental period at the beginning of the 20 th
century. Today, characterisation usually involves a mixture of the rtwo techniques.
 1984 BY GEORGE ORWELL

The phrase ‘Big Brother’ has entered the english and other languages to describe
organisations and systems that exert control over large numbers of people and invade their
privacy. The term was first coined by G. Orwell in his novel, 1984. On the basis of his
observation of both Fascist and Communist totalitarian regimes, he tried to look(?) the future and
imagined what the world would be like if totalitarianism were to develop.

The year 1984 has passed and the nightmare situation envisaged by Orwell has not materialied,
but the issues he raises are still of enormous interest and relevance today.

Story : Winston Smith works at the Ministry of Truth in Oceania, one of three empires that rule
the planet earth in 1984. As long as anyone can remember, Oceania has been at war with either
Eurasia or Eastasia.

Big brother is the all-powerful dictator of Oceania. His face is to be seen everywhere:in g
homes, on the streets, at work. His regime has total control over people’s lives and Thought
Police try to eradicate any form of free thinking and expression. .. is constantly revised to fall in
line with current government policy, while a new law (Newspeak) is being invented to limit the
number and type of ideas that can be expressed. Winston comes into contact with people from
what he believes to be a secret organisation that’s working against the regime. They are, in fact,
government party members who tricked him into revealing his anti-government views. One of
them, O’Brien, subjects him to torture to make him admit that he is wrong and that the party is
right. He eventually gives in and claims he loves Big Brother.

! The term utopia derives from the Greek words outopia (no place) and eutopia (good
place) and is used to refer to literature which describes a better world or way of living.

The term dystopia (bad place) is used to describe fiction which depicts an imaginary world
where the negative aspects of society have been carried to unpleasant extremes. By
forecasting an unpleasant or catastrophic future, the writer of a dystopian story hopes to draw
attention to problems in his contemporary society.

George Orwell’s 1984 is a dystopian novel.