Joyce, Woolf, Orwell and Kerouac, Appunti di Inglese

Scarica Joyce, Woolf, Orwell and Kerouac e più Appunti in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! Dv Le Filentzo. sa JAMES JovcH1382 - au] È #9 He was bom infDublin in 1884 in Ireland into a Catholic middle-class family. When he was a child O his parents lo: Pag study at University College in Dublin, Cart x In 1904 the director of me Rertig Institute o Tala (the city still belonging to Austria-Hungary) 3 fanguogps i offered him a teaching position. His interests were for a broader European culture, and this led him les Rea, to begin to think of himself as a European, rather than an Irishman. Joyce literary works reveal his s complex relationship with Ireland, his mother country: even though he left Dublin, his works are all + ui obsessively set in Ireland which he both loved and hated. But Joyce" s self-imposed exile gave him“, _...3.-4 the chance In Trieste Joyce force became friends with the Italian writerItalo Svevo who greatly influenced his style and tnemes. There he worked on 2 of his best-known literary works: \b Sites searched for Cogliah \ers0ns bur oi te ess soyce learned mote Fralian «Dubliners (a collection of short stories) than Svevo wita English PR EER sort of semi-autobiographical Bildungsroman, a German Wi iS ‘and refers to a novel which portrays the process of growing — up.of the character, like Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre) When the First World War broke out, he moved to Zurich, where he started working on what would became his masterpiece: «Ulysses (a book that reproduces the structure of Homer's Odyssey) Then he lived in Paris fora short period of time because after the Germans occupied France, Joyce and his family went back to Zurich where he died in 1941. He is considered one of the greatest representatives of Modernism for many reasons: le g pI \y reasons «Greater importance given to the i . Indeed, all the facts in his narratives are ir e ana Î «Time is perceived as sbibjeetive, according to Henri Bergson's theory. «Moreover, Joyce's works are based on the rejection of the Victorian idea of the third-person ‘omniscient narratorand on the use of an internal ‘or example, in Dubliners the realism that Joyce adopts is mixed with and free direct thought. two techniques that anticipate s DUBLINERS (-#eferest=2t Ke La 1 moos Dubliners is a collection of 15 sho soc pubihed in {gi4 As the title suggests, the stories revolve around the lives of 15 typical inhabitants of the city of Dublin and represent an ideal portrait of the Irish capital at the beginning of the 20th century. The Dublin that Joyce portrays is a rather stallo end pro vnza om which does not have the cosmopolitan atmosphere of many other European capitals of that time. This inevitably affects the lives of its inhabitants, who are represented as being imprisoned in a city that does not give them the chance to develop their full potential as human beings. The stories can be divided in four main groups, each dealing with a particular theme: «The first 3 stories tackle the theme of childhood the sense of disillusionment and failure ‘The second group deals with.adolescence. «& guns is followed by another group dealing with adulthood: Eyeline belongs-to this:section which tackles issues such as the the passivity.of Irish people and the paralysis of their.will..  In fact, she's passive, influenced by her family’s mentality, i ity i > n and his personality is pervaded b ‘struggle. between personal happiness and responsibliy. EI ° «The last group of stories portrays the sterile relationship between Irish individuals and collective institutions. This collection is entitled TI “the protagonist is the prototype of the mediocre Irish middle-class, an individual who lives like È As we can see each story of the collection is. pervaded by a sense of disillusionment'and failure and tackles issues such as man's inability fulfil their lives by overcoming all the obstacles and the consequent RE to escape from suffering. % ParRAcYHsiS 5 spit va ce Apparently, there is only one potential way to escape from the universal Raralygis that affects the 4 whole Irish nation: epii The word 'epiphany' means - 4 e “apipheny piphany {n'{W001f ‘revelation’ and ‘manifestation’. Joyce uses it to refer to the moments in which the characters of imonmenis Dubliners experience the sudden revelation of their condition of paralysis. Itis the special moment of Deng in which a banal situation or an episode lead the:character to a sudden self-realisation abouthimself È. o no / herself or about the reality surrounding him / her. A Stream of conscioviSness DEINd The narrative technique Joyce uses in Dubliners eo n euse based on the + } ejection of the Victorian idea of the third-person omniscient narrator and on the use of an internal but it, 4 narrative perspective (narrated from every characters the point of view). The realism that adoptsfi, È 2 deg! C Joyce is mixed with free direct speech and free direct thoughts. i i ec sto) When She was Child as abi ic Te hi VIRGINIA:WOOLE 128% 7)- meteore was born in London in 1882, daughter of a very important Victorian man of letters and founder of the È Diana gi aliena) Bioaagby. and a woman who worked as a 1 ed Being a woman, Virginia did not'have the chance to go to university; however, she received a WOrES | fine home education, was surrounded by artists and writers and became an intellectual and a i iÉ She published many books, essays, articles and novels. Among her novels, the most remarkable are “Mrs Dalloway” and “To the Lighthouse”, which imagination was influenced by the Proust, Freud and Bergson’ s theories. Like Joyce, Woolf used the stream.of consciousness, technique. However, unlike Joyce, she pushed it in different directions: Woolfs novels.are.like meniakuowases sontrast between inner life and external reality % which centre around the c: a insidered to be the beginning When her mother died, she had a serious nervous breakdown th: of the ‘psychological'instability that would affect her ini —herselfin a river. feos LI d PS Volonce. and 0 do n nei n in MRS. DALLOWAY (1925) g° Gonftuo and Uil a ee ER PLOT a lives The story takes place i A middle-aged woman | busy buying flowers and objects forthe party she has organised for the evening. Her thoughts and her actions ‘are at the base of narration and tries to x prseJ pture th i ions that the modem city of London produces in'and on her. Peni Septimus Smithfis a shell-shocked veteran of the war that wanders through London too, buthisisa ©n wono, Voyage towards self-destruction: the novel ends with Septimus! suicide. NATO The news of his death reaches Clarissa while she is at her party. She is deeply shocked and realises Sti ta ive. The novel ends with Clarissa's realising that Teo ‘she felt glad that he had done it; thrown it away while they went on living. ia va x  A MODERNIST NOVEL The plot doesn't represent the main object of the authors. attention: is a modemist nove! characterised by a great deal of narrative experimentation and psychological insight. The novel is narrted by an team se rio the indiano ponolgal render the characters’ thoughts visi This allows "give importance to the inner reality of the characters ‘rather than-to external events and facts i CONTRASTS AND SYMBOLS The novel revolves around a series of fundamental di which simbolise the essence of Woolf narrative: the cn a e e racer 6; the juxtaposition between life and death; li sthei The novel is also characterised by the massive presence of symbols, which represent recurring elements that contribute to create a ‘sense of narrative unity in the novel. The strongest of these symbols is surely the lighthouse symbol of something that is constantly present, and ani presence. It is not by chance that the novel is entitled To the Lighthouse: the preposition ‘to’ suggests the idea that I i , but also the i i , whose act of reading is ultimate aim of the reader GEORGE ORWELL !493" 1aso jr was bom in 1903 in india where his father worked in the administration of the British he ire. He spent his childhood in ingland and went to Eton College, where he was an excellent —, was scholar with a i indi # keen interest in literature. His family's circumstances did not allow him to go to dir accimi university so he joined the Indian Imperial Police in Burma, gaining first-hand experience of the poor ca and of the oppressive role of the Imperia! administration. He didn't like working there so he retumed ori gio co to England:and lived among the poor people before leaving for Paris where he had to accept menial jobs..He returned to London ‘and, under the name of George Orwell; published his first book, Down and Out in Paris an. (1933), describing the i iS. Orwell wrote a series ‘of books before going to fight in the Spanish Civil War. He was wounded and forced to return to England, where he described his war experiences in Homage to Catalonia. published in 1938. Now suffering from tùberculosis; Orwell worked briefly for the-BBC and then became literary editor ol i In 1945 his allegorica! novel, Animal Farm, was published. In 1949, Orwell published his last great novel i i ra uigaRetaysto pian' vision of a future world ruled over by an oppressive totalitarian regime Whici gives him success. Unwilling to live a life of celebrity, Orwell moved to.Jura, a remote island off the coast of Scotland. In his short life, Grwettrwasarprolifie writer ‘and. all of-his work was based on his interest în ‘he socialvand political conditions tfiat he had ini ifetime, indeed, he thought a-writer.should be. i is.toi i » He died of tuberculosis on 21-January 1950 ina ORWELL'S ANTI-TOTALITARIANISM Orwell is one of the strongest anti-totalitarian voices of literature . His works express a ciesiamlba.. against the mystification of power ‘and the dangers of totalitarianism in society. Animal Farm, one o his most famous works, clearly shows Orwell's i «Itis i-Soviet satire written in the form of a political allegory, in which human characters are r i i the novel is a representation of the dangers of all kinds of revolutions ‘and denounces the 505 | O recensire TT NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR (1949) The novel that contains Orwell's dystopian novel set in a bleak future and denouncing the dang ‘a world in which human individuality has been The novel is set in what was once London, now capital of the state of  ‘head'of The Party, which governs over the citizens in a system of constant-surveiliance, violent. | o portant and compulsory activity Was the two minutes "hate. A reform of English has led to the creation of a new language, Newspeak. Winston Smith is a journalist whose task is to rewrite old n i Ì d. Winston rebels and writes a diary to keep a record.of events and affirms a belief in the existence of jeoti Winston finds a partner in his rebellion in the young dulia, with whom he has an affair. however, they were discovered by the Thought Police. Winston and Julia are arrested and subjected to torture and brainwashing until they are'cured’. They betray each other, reject their ideals and ‘confess' their guilt and stupidity. Winston is seen in the last lines of the novel as a broken man ‘buta perfectcitizen, whose only much'of his life. POWER AND DOMINATION The title of the novel clearly shows that what Orwell had in mind was to represent the frightening I g.‘1984' refers to the future and is the reverse of '1948 the year in which Orwell wrote the book. This fascinating but disturbing novel examines an imaginal funga tei clearly reflects the itari I ing his life. Orwell's interest was sharply focused on the difficulty of preserving individuality, the value of truth and personal intellectual freedom in a society where language was manipulated, where censorship controlled all forms of public expression and where allsimple human values were sacrificed in favour of social and: political. orthodoxy. Totalitorisms: Turfey, Russia. Notth Coro, THE CHARACTER OF WINSTON SMITH Winston Smith is the protagonist of Nineteen Eighty-Four. His name is highly symbolical: 'Winston' is a direct reference to Winston Churchill, while Smith is the most common English surname. His name seems to suggest the idea that he is a sort of contemporary 'everyman' representing the ‘universal qualities of English people. Winston is one of the few human beings whose humanity has not been completely cancelled by the totalitarian regime: He keeps blurred memories of a past in which things were better and hates the Party, against whose power he tries to rebel. In spite of his attempts to preserve his humanity and his love for Julia, he eventual sprender income the place where he is tortured and forced to betrayhis lover, thus becoming a passive an -sonalized member of the Party. BIG BROTHER ste dea Big Brother is a combination of He is an image present everywhere in the state of Oceania. A strong, apparentiy benevolent face-looks at all citizens from posters and television «screens, even coined on pennies. «e “Big Brother is watching you” is the slogan that we find everywhere, reflecting a regime in which all the citizens can be spied upon and where even thoughts are not private. Survival in this world demands i ti THE MSITOMENTE OF POWER: NEWSPEAK AND 'DOUBLETHINK' the name of the reformed version of the English language (Oldspeak) which is being introduced in the society of 1984, It involves the elimination of all of vocabulary but, most importantly, its aim i bili i by removing words which could express concepts like ' lewspeak is an example of the way language can be used as an instrument for power and coercion. Î The other instrument of power and mass control used by the Party is e ability of holding two contrasting ideas at the same time, even when they are contradictory. (like War is peace, freedom is slavery). This capacity used to erase the past and to make people believe in its truths, represents the cancellation of human conscience and rationality. YSTOPIAN NOVEL--> because e le used the 3rd person narrator mixed with Winston's limited perspective. The language is clear and concise and used neologism Uro pia porci» Uropia of thamas Hoce JACK KEROUAC (1922-1969) American novelist and poet, Jack Kerouac, was born on 12 March 1g22.io Massachusetts. the son of French-speaking immigrants from His two interests in childhood were reading — and sports. Kerouac dreamed of writing the ‘great American novel" but saw sport as a means of providing for his future, furthermore he developed a spiritual dimension from the Catholic faith of his childhood. He won a football scholarship to Columbia University, New York, where he discovered jazz, but soon abandoned his studies when a broken leg interrupted his football career. After a series of part-time jobs, he enlisted in the | butwas discharged ten days later on account of his ‘strong tic Kerouac became friends with the writers leading figures in what would become known as the f writers. Kerouac wrote his first novel, TI in New York, even if it did not bring him the fame. With Neal Cassady, Kei ic went on long ipsi 19405. The notes he took on these trips formed the basis of his Ì, which he wrote in three weeks in 1951. The novel was not published until 1957, but when it appeared it was ‘an immediate success, hailed as the 5 Kerouac continued to write novels and he produced poetry but was never able to cope with the fame that On the Road had brought him. He lapsed into ‘alcoholism and drugraddiction and had three marriages, two of which ended'in rapid divorces. In October 1969 he died at the age of 47 from an THE TERM ‘BEAT GENERATION Jack Kerouac coined the term 'Beat Generation'. 'Beat writing and the unconventional life associated with it were the symbols of a rebellious They wer jous in but tried to express th THE BEAT GENERATION’S INFLUENCE The spread of ecological consciousness; attention to a ‘second religiousness'; t THE BEATNIKS — INtoSvoA + They often hitchhiked across the country along Route 66, the famous American highway e They advocated ind created an underground culture; which included jazz, poetty Se CI