JAMES JOYCE AND VIRGINIA WOOLF, Appunti di Inglese

Scarica JAMES JOYCE AND VIRGINIA WOOLF e più Appunti in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! THE STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS The aim is to represent the free flux of thoughts through the fragmentation of character’s perspective, through the breaking of syntactic/grammar rules, through the overlapping of past and present events. The idea of the stream of consciousness comes from different theories and factors: from WILLIAM JAMES (who is an American Philosopher) who said that human consciousness is a flowing stream; from SIGMUND FREUD (who is an Austrian Doctor and the founder of PSYCHOANALYSIS) who said that the human mind is made up 2 parts: the conscious and the unconscious, which is the mysterious and irrational part. The modernist writers tried to describe this new concept through the stream of consciousness; from HERNI BERGSON (who’s a French philosopher) who established a new concept of time, which is not made up of distinct or separate units but it’s a constant flow. The modernist writers were interested in subjective time rather than a linear plot. JAMES JOYCE Life (1882-1941) James Joyce is one of the most important novelists of all time, he’s one of the greatest innovators of 20th century prose writing and he’s one of the major representatives of Modernism. In 1898 Joyce started studying Italian, French and English at University College, Dublin, where he also started writing literary reviews and articles. The director of the Berlitz Institute of Trieste offered him a teaching position, Joyce moved to Trieste, where he worked on two of his best-known literary works: Dubliners (1914), a collection of short stories written using a naturalistic style, and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), a sort of a semi-autobiographical Bildungsroman. In Trieste Joyce became friends with the Italian writer Italo Svevo, who greatly influenced Joyce's style and themes. In 1914, when the First World War broke out, Joyce moved to Zurich, where he started working on Ulysses, his masterpiece. In 1920 Joyce moved to Paris, where he started working on his last novel, Finnegans Wake. Dubliners It is made up of 15 short stories divided in 4 main groups. Each group is about a specific topic: Childhood, adolescence, Mature life/Adulthood and Public life. “The Dead” is the most important short story because it’s an epilogue and also a sort of summary of all the stories of Dubliners. DUBLIN: SETTING AND THEME All the masterpiece is set in one single city, which is Dublin: it doesn’t represent only a city but it is also an important theme. Dublin is a static and provincial town thar affects the lives of its inhabitants, who seems imprisoned in a city that does not give them an opportunity to evolve. PARALYSIS Each character has something in common: Failure makes them unable to react. In fact, they have desires but they’re forced by the circumstances to surrender because they do not have the will to transform their desire into action. The Paralysis is what makes them experience, physically and spiritually, stagnation and inaction. EPIPHANY A way to escape from that situation would be Epiphany: it is a specific moment in which an external object or an episode provoke into the character a sudden self-realisation about their real condition. Unfortunately, Epiphany does not solve or change their condition of inaction but it only reveal it. Understanding the Epiphany in each story is the key to the story itself. THE NARRATIVE TECHNIQUE All the stories contained in Dubliners is narrated from the point of view of one of the characters. The realism is mixed with free indirect speech and free indirect thought. EVELINE (scheda) This short story describes the life of a 19-year-old girl who has the opportunity to change her routine life but is unable to leave her familiar community in Dublin. In the first scene Eveline sat at the window in her room watching the avenue that reminded her childhood. Eveline’s Father was violent and abusive towards his children but not against Eveline. Franks is represented as a kind, manly and open-hearted man who wants to marry Eveline then live together in Buenos Ayres. When Eveline heard a street organ playing, she thinks both to her duty to stay with her family as she promised to her mother (to maintain the family together) and to the chance to escape with Frank. In this short story the Epiphany is triggered by the sound of the organ: it reveals to Evelin the reality of her life. The Epiphany is also provoked by the Eveline’s thoughts of the pitiful life of her mother and she must escape from a life like that. In the end, at the port, Eveline decides to not follow Frank to Buenos Ayres because she has to maintain her family together as promised to her mother. Ulysses The protagonist of the book is Stephen Dedalus, a young artist who rebels against his country, his family and religion and leaves Ireland in a sort of self-imposed exile to find freedom. The narration follows the actions of one single character, Leopold Bloom (the modern Ulysses), who wanders through the city of Dublin in one single day (16 June 1904). Through the use of the stream of consciousness technique Joyce enters Bloom' mind and allows the reader to follow his fragmented thoughts, sensations and perceptions. Ulysses is an epic novel which offers different visions of daily life, personal attitudes, political and cultural discussion and reflection on the human condition. Joyce' references to Homer's The Odyssey and to the world of ancient mythology makes the events narrated in the novel more universal and at the same time underlines the miserable reality of modernity, which lacks the heroism of the ancient world. SEMPTIMUS AND CLARISSA The protagonist is a woman named Clarissa Dalloway, who’s deeply frustrated because her life as a wife and a mother represents a limitation to her freedom. Clarissa’s mind is full of her past memories; the reader can understand her thoughts through the stream of consciousness technique and realise that Clarissa's self is split between the desire to celebrate life (which is shown by her love for parties and social life) and an attraction towards death (which characterises her as an ageing woman). Septimus is Clarissa’s male counterpart who considers suicide as a form of liberation from the weight of life. Woolf follows Clarissa and Septimus while they wander through London but at the end of the day only Clarissa survives. THE CONNECTION BEETWEEN SEPTIMUS AND CLARISSA (scheda) Clarissa is a London society lady of fifty-one, the wife of a Conservative Member of parliament. She is characterised by opposing feelings: her need for freedom and independence and her class consciousness. She needs to make her home perfect to become an ideal human being, but she imposes severe restrictions on her spontaneous feelings. Septimus is an extremely sensitive man who can experience panic, fear and guilt because he’s traumatised about the death of his best friend during the war. He remains shell-shocked that made him suffers from headaches and insomnia. Clarissa and Septimus are similar because they depend upon their partners for stability and protection. Septimus is not always able to distinguish between his personal response and external reality. His psychic paralysis leads him to suicide whereas Clarissa never loses her awareness of the outside world as something external to herself. In the end accepts the idea of death, and is prepared to go on. AN EXPERIMENTAL NOVEL Woolf chooses to focus on one single character (Clarissa) on one single day (a Wednesday in June) in one single place (London). What interests a modernist writer like Woolf is thus not the variety of the plot, but the workings of the mind, which means that she gave voice to the inner world of feelings and memory. Mrs Dalloway abandons the traditionally-structured plot of Victorian novels in favour of a more experimental approach to writing. In traditional novels all actions are logically and rationally connected with one another while ln Mrs Dalloway actions are fragmented. What gives unity to the novel is the coherence of the mind, which receives a huge quantity of impressions, inputs and stimuli. THE CONTRAST BETWEEN SUBJECTIVE AND OBJECTIVE TIME What Woolf stresses about her novel is the importance of subjective time in contrast with objective time. CLARISSA’S PARTY Characters-->Clarissa and Richard Dalloway, Sir William Bradshaw (Septimus’ doctor) and his wife, Peter and Sally (Clarissa’s friends). First paragraph -->The Bradshaw arrives late because one of sir William's patients committed suicide throwing himself from a window. Clarissa’s doesn’t know this man, who’s Septimus, but has a connection with him and understand why he killed himself. 1- Sir and lady Bradshaw arrive late at Clarissa's party, they start talking about Septimus’ suicide. 2- Clarissa's reaction: she’s annoyed and dismayed about the news. 3- Clarissa goes into another room by herself to think 4- Clarissa start observing her neighbour that is an old woman 5- She's starting to feel a strict connection with Septimus and a renewed joy in life (moment of being) Evidence of the party--> lines 1-2, lines 9-10, lines 51-52, line 57, lines 60-61 Reference to the past-->from line 8 to line 11 she’s thinking about her childhood, from line 34 to line 41 is described how Clarissa wasn’t a fair person when she was living in London, lines 53-54 are described past thoughts about Septimus’ suicide who’s already dead. Clarissa’s Relationship with his husband-->from lines 27 to 30 is described a unhealthy relationship not based on love but based on convenience; Clarissa refused Peter to marry Richard because he was a member of parliament. Exercise n. 9--> The Climax is the suicide of Septimus and Clarissa understand she can go on living and accepts her life when she hears the clock striking. Exercise n.11--> line 5: Inversion (up had...) and alliteration (Blundering, bruising) line 6: Repetition (thud, thud, thud) and metaphor (suffocation of blackness)