Britain during the First World War: Women's Role, Modernism, and the Interior Monologue, Dispense di Inglese

Scarica Britain during the First World War: Women's Role, Modernism, and the Interior Monologue e più Dispense in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! Britain and the First World War When the British Secretary of State for War, Lord Kithener, realised that the war was going to last a long time and that Britain would have to send a large army overseas, he appealed for volunteers, but it would take time to turn them into soldiers. The Empire made its contribution sending troops from the dominions as well as volunteers from Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Conscription was introduced in Britain in 1916. Women replace men in their civilian jobs with reliability and competence. A big issue of British politics in the first 2 decades of the 20th century was the “Irish Question”. The term refers to the tragic events regarding the fight for Irish Independence. In April 1916 there was a rebellion in Dublin due to the fact that Home Rule, voted by the Commons in 1914, had been suspended until the end of the war. The leaders of the insurrection received support from Germany; the rebellion was repressed and 15 of the leaders executed. The Irish Republican party, which was fighting for the reunification of Ireand, began to grow in popularity exploiting the fear the Irish had that military conscription might extend to Ireland. In May 1915 a German submarine sank the British passenger liner Lusitania and more than a thousand people died.In the same year Italy joined France and Britain. The bloodiest battle in British history took place on the Somme, which was a perfect example of war attrition, where huge battles were fought not to win strategic objectives or seize resources, but to kill soldiers and wear down the enemy. Soldiers retreated into trenches behind barbed wire; machine guns, poison gas, tanks and aircraft were used. The German also relied on submarines that were effective in sinking warships. Life in the trenches was very stressful because of mud, lack of hygiene, boredom and fear of gas. So the soldiers relieved the stress by means of superstition, religion, poetry, letters and drink. “Shell shock” was the term used to allude to the psychological effects. The horror of trench life was recalled by the War Poets. By October 1918 the Germans were retreating along the Western Front. On 4th October 1918 Germany asked President Woodrow Wilson for an armistice which would bring about German withdrawal from occupied territory and allow national self-determination, but included no punishment for the country.On 11th November the guns fell silent and the day has forever been commemorated as Armistice Day. The peace treaty was signed at Versailles in 1919 by the Allied powers. President Woodrow Wilson proposed 14 points to work out the peace treaty and prevent future wars. He presented a plan to set up the League of Nations. Age of anxiety The First World War left Britain in a disillusioned and cynical mood. Some soldiers were haunted by a sense of guilt for the horrors of trench warfare or missed the sense of purpose the war years had given them. There was an increasing feeling of frustration. Nothing seemed to be right or certain: scientists and philosophers destroyed the old, predictable universe which had sustained the Victorians in their optimistic outlook, and new views of man and the universe that had emerged at the beginning of the century spread through society. The first set of new ideas had been introduced by Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) in his essay The Interpretation of Dreams (1900). Freud's view of the developing psyche emphasised the power of the unconscious to affect behaviour; the discovery that man's action could be motivated by irrational forces of which he might know nothing was very disturbing. His theories also placed enormous importance on the demands of the 'libido', particularly those manifested in the Oedipus phase, in which the child sees the father as a rival for his mother's affections. The relationship between parents and children was altered; the Freudian concept of infantile sexuality focused attention on the importance of early development. Freud also provided a new method of investigation of the human mind through the analysis of dreams and the concept of 'free association' (where the patients speak about whatever entered their mind at the moment). Carl Gustav Jung continued Freud's studies and added the concept of 'collective unconscious', a sort of cultural memory containing the universal images and beliefs of the human race. Some figures or objects of the everyday world had great symbolic power and people responded to them unconsciously. Only the psychologist or the poet could understand these symbols and explain them. The growing crisis of confidence was also due to the introduction of “relativity” in science. Einstein's theory of relativity discarded the concepts of time and space, which he saw as subjective dimensions. The idea of time was also questioned by the philosophers William James and Henri Bergson. James held that our mind records every single experience as a continuous flow of “the already” into “the not yet”. Bergson made a distinction between historical time and psychological time. Historical time is external, linear and measured in terms of the spatial distance, whereas psychological time is internal, subjective and measured by the relative emotional intensity of a moment. Some studies of anthropology helped undermine the absolute truth of religious and ethical systems in favour of more relativist standpoints. The problem that lay behind all these manifestations of uncertainty was the inability to arrive at a commonly accepted picture of man. Under the influence of the ideas of Nietzsche, who had declared that “God is dead” and had substituted Christian morality with a belief in human power and perfectibility, the Christian notion of man as owing his possibilities of salvation to God's grace lost its former strength. The interior monologue At the beginning of the 20th century, it’s given more importance to subjective consciousness and novelists adopted the interior monologue to represent the unspoken activity of the mind before it is ordered into speech. The main features of the interior monologue are: ● It is characterised by the frequent lack of chronological order ● The narrator may be present ● Formal logical order may be lost or lacking ● The action takes place within the character's mind ● Speech may be immediate, without introductory expressions ● The mind of the character is allowed to wander freely among associations of ideas. There are two kinds of interior monologue, indirect and direct. In the indirect interior monologue, the narrator never lets the character's thoughts flow without control; they are presented directly and by adding descriptions, appropriate comments and explanatory or introductory phrases to guide the reader through the narration; the character stays fixed in space while his/her consciousness moves freely in time: in the character's mind, however, everything happens in the present, which can extend to infinity or contract to a moment. This concept of “inner time”, which is irregular and disrupted compared to the conventional conception of time, is preferred to “external time”, since it shows the relativism of a subjective experience. Joyce used two different kinds of direct interior monologue: that with two levels of narration - one external to the character's mind, and the other internal - and the one with and only the mind level of narration, up to the extreme interior monologue. The direct interior monologue with two levels of narration is characterised by a mix of third-person narration, linked to an external time, and an interior narration linked to the concept of “inner time”, that is, the time of the character's mind. In the direct interior monologue with the mind level of narration, the character's thoughts flow freely, not interrupted by external events. Dubliners consists of 15 short stories; they lend to a moral, social or spiritual revelation. The opening stories deal with childhood and youth in Dublin; the others deal with the middle years of characters. Joyce was hostile to city life, finding that it degraded its citizens. In fact, his Dublin is a place where true feeling and compassion for others do not exist, where cruelty and selfishness lie just below the surface. Everyone in Dublin seems to be caught up in an endless web of despair. Even when they want to escape, the characters are unable to because they are spiritually weak. The use of realism is mixed with symbolism, since external details generally have a deeper meaning. The name of certain objects is carefully chosen and stands out from the naturalistic context in which they are placed. Religious symbolism can also be found. Even colour symbolism is widely employed in the collection: brown, grey and yellow frequently suggest the pervading atmosphere of despair and paralysis. Joyce thought that the function of symbolism was to take the reader beyond the usual aspects of life through the analysis of the particular. To this end he employed a peculiar technique called “epiphany'', that is the sudden spiritual manifestation caused by a trivial gesture, an external object or a banal situation, which reveals the character's inner truths. His style in Dubliners is characterised by two distinct elements: the interior monologue and patterned repetition of images, that is, chiasmus. In the first three short stories he employs a first-person narrator, who remains nameless and not identified. It may be the same little boy for each of them, but we can never be certain. This narrator describes events from the point of view of the young boy; this allows the reader to penetrate the boy's mind and consequently to understand him better. For the other 12 stories a third-person narrator shares a particular character's perspective. The narrator tends to disappear in the interior monologue, which is in the form of free direct speech: the protagonist's pure thoughts are introduced without any reporting verbs. This allows the reader to acquire direct knowledge of the character's mind. The language of Dubliners appears simple, objective and neutral. It is always adapted to the characters according to their age, social class and role. Chiasmus can create melodic effects. Araby The story takes place in the late 19th century in Dublin, on North Richmond Street. The unknown narrator lives on North Richmond Street. The street has a number of houses where religion seems to dominate the lives of the people. The narrator talks about the dead priest. The priest had some non-religious books which show that they were bothered by the religious restrictions. Moreover, the street has a dead end and several houses along with a Christian Brother’s school, a Catholic school for boys are situated in this street. The street remains quiet, except when the schoolboys play in the street until dinner. A young boy develops a crush on Mangan's sister, a girl who lives across the street. One evening she asks him if he plans to go to a bazaar (a fair organised, probably by a church, to raise money for charity) called Araby. The girl will be away on a retreat when the bazaar is held and therefore unable to attend. The boy promises that if he goes he will bring her something from Araby. The boy requests and receives permission to attend the bazaar on Saturday night. When Saturday night comes, however, his uncle returns home late, possibly having visited a pub after work. After much anguished waiting, the boy receives money for the bazaar, but by the time he arrives at Araby, it is too late. The event is shutting down for the night, and he does not have enough money to buy something nice for Mangan's sister anyway. The boy cries in frustration. Interior monologue: The narrator recounts a boy’s thoughts about the disappointment of love through the use of an inner monologue in which the narrator and protagonist are not two distinct persons. It is fundamental because it allows you to fully understand the mentality of the boy. Eveline Eveline Hill, a 19-year-old woman who works in a Dublin shop, sits inside her family's house recalling childhood, including some happy memories as well as her father's drunken brutality to her and her siblings. Eveline thinks about people she has known who have either left Ireland (a priest who has travelled to Melbourne, for example) or died (her mother and her brother Ernest), and of her own plans to leave the country with a man named Frank. She recalls meeting Frank, an Irish sailor now living in Argentina, and dating him while he visited Dublin on vacation. Eveline also thinks about her father's disapproval of Frank, and of her promise "to keep the home together as long as she could" before her mother grew deranged and died. Later, gripped by fear of the unknown and probably guilt as well, Eveline finds herself unable to board the ferry to England, where she and Frank are scheduled to meet a ship bound for South America. He leaves without her. Interior monologue: the inner monologue here lies precisely in the presentation of all Eveline’s thoughts and memories. It makes us understand Eveline’s doubts and fears. A painful case A solitary, effete bank cashier named James Duffy becomes acquainted with a woman named Mrs. Sinico at a Dublin concert. They meet regularly to discuss art and ideas, first at her house (with the full knowledge of her husband, Captain Sinico), and then at her cottage outside the city, where they grow close both intellectually and emotionally. When Mrs. Sinico reaches for Duffy's hand, however, he insists that they stop seeing one another. Four years later, Duffy reads in the newspaper about Mrs. Sinico's death, apparently by suicide. At first he feels revolted, ashamed that he ever considered her a peer. Then Duffy begins to feel guilty: Did his rejection of her result in Mrs. Sinico's suicide? Finally he identifies and empathises with Mrs. Sinico, realising that her loneliness mirrored his own — and that he is now more alone than ever. Interior monologue: Here the inner monologue is present from the moment Duffy learns of the woman’s death and begins to feel guilty and reflect on what happened. The Dead Gabriel, a University teacher and writer, and Gretta Conroy go to the annual Christmas party given by Gabriel’s aunts Julia and Kate Morkan. There’s a lot of eating, drinking, dancing and laughing at the party and Gabriel meets several friends. Among the people Gabriel meets Miss Ivors, a nationalist who accuses him of being a “West Briton”. From this moment, Gabriel changes his mood and the party becomes a failure for him, even if he delivers a very successful speech after dinner. Just before leaving, Gabriel sees Gretta listening to an old Irish song someone is playing on the piano, obviously enchanted by it. When they arrive at their hotel, Gabriel’s sexual desire is frustrated by Gretta, who tells him the song has reminded her of Michael Furey, a boy who was in love with her when she was seventeen and who died for her love. After having told her story and cried over it, Gretta falls asleep, while Gabriel, looking out of the window at the snow falling down, experiences his epiphany, which will probably bring him to leave Ireland with his wife. Gabriel Conroy can be clearly identified with Joyce himself. He’s an intellectual and he’s sick of Ireland and the Irish, as he openly states in his conversation with Miss Ivors. He experiences his epiphany when he realises the people at the party are really dead, while the dead Michael Furey is still alive and when he becomes aware of the superficiality of his relationship with his wife. He’s the only round character of the Dubliners, who will probably leave Ireland. Gretta is Gabriel’s wife; she’s never told her husband the story of her first love, but she seems to love him anyway. Gabriel’s aunts are ordinary women, kind and caring, absolutely unaware of the complexity of Gabriel’s personality; anyway they love him. Miss Ivors is a bit of a caricature of the Irish nationalist women: self-assured, arrogant, ignorant too. A main feature of characters in The Dead is that we see them from Gabriel’s point of view, so we share his knowledge and perception of them. No other clue is given about their personalities. The narrator is third person, unobtrusive. The setting is Dublin, but the story is mainly set indoors, first at aunt Julia and Kate’s house, then at the hotel, with the exception of the ride to the hotel by carriage. As we share Gabriel’s point of view, we also experience his changing feelings: the party turning from warm to suffocating, the relief of the ride by carriage, the anonymity of the hotel room. Paralysis: the paralysis of life in Dublin is symbolised by the repetitiveness of Christmas party rituals and closeness of Irish nationalists’ minds, embodied by Miss Ivors. Gabriel is paralyzed by his duties as a public man, a nephew, a husband. Epiphany: Gabriel experiences his epiphany when he realises the people at the party are spiritually dead, while the dead Michael Furey is still alive, as he had the courage to die for love, going against social rules. He becomes aware of the superficiality of his relationship with his wife, he thought to know very well, and plans to escape. Escape: Gabriel is the only character of the Dubliners whose escape is not said to fail. Given his obvious identification with Joyce, we may think he’ll take the writer’s same journey towards Europe. Anyway, Joyce’s narrative is resignedly ambiguous on this point. The snow: it may be the symbol of death, covering Ireland like a shroud, or the symbol of purification and rebirth. Ulysses Ulysses was designed as a detailed account of ordinary life on an ordinary Dublin day and Joyce planned each movement of each character on each street as though he were playing chess. He made the very air of Dublin, the atmosphere, the feeling, the place, almost indistinguishable, certainly inseparable, from his human characters. Consequently, Dublin becomes itself a character in this novel. Joyce used the Odyssey as a structural framework for his book, arranging its characters and events around Homer's heroic model, with Bloom as Ulysses, Stephen as his son Telemachus and Molly as the faithful Penelope. Each chapter is additionally organised around a different hour, a colour, an organ of the body, a sense, a symbol, a narrative technique suitable for the subject-matter. Stephen Dedalus, Mr Bloom and Mrs Bloom represent two aspects of human nature. Stephen is pure intellect and embodies every young man seeking maturity. Mrs Bloom stands for flesh, since she identifies herself totally with her sensual nature and fecundity; her train of thought, while she is lying in the darkness at night, is carried on by her own memories. Mr Bloom is everybody, the whole of mankind; in his stream of consciousness things are linked by cause and effect or by being near in space and time. The theme of the novel, implied by the quest or journey, is moral: human life means suffering, falling but also struggling to rise and seek the good. Joyce combined several methods to present a variety of matters: the stream of consciousness technique; the cinematic technique, with the literary equivalents of close-ups, flashbacks, tracking shots, suspension of speech; question and answer; dramatic dialogue and the juxtaposition of events. In Ulysses, Joyce brought to perfection the interior monologue employing two levels of narration, one external to the character's mind and the other internal, and the one with only the mind level of narration. The language used is rich in puns, images, contrasts, paradoxes, juxtapositions, interruptions, false clues, and symbols; the range of vocabulary and registers is amazing. Plot The whole novel takes place on a single day, Thursday, June 16, 1904, which was special to Joyce because it was the day that Nora Barnacle, his future wife, confessed to him. 3) “Occasional poems” → he tries to interpret great historical events like the German invasion of Poland. Refugee Blues This poem deals with the victims of Nazi persecution; a German Jew is speaking to a companion about their pitiful condition. They are homeless and they cannot leave their country where they are considered intruders, because they have no passport. Bureaucracy prevents them from getting their documents, more than that, even though they are still alive in body, bureaucracy states they no longer exist. Other people stand aside and see what's happening but don't act, or worse, act to condemn them without understanding. Cats and dogs are loved better than the refugees; their owners care for them but show hostility towards the Jewish. In the poem there are some contrasting images which are meant to emphasise the message. In line 2, the contrast between 'mansions' and 'holes' refers to the gap between the rich and the poor; in lines 11 and 12, the refugees are considered dead by the government of their country but they are alive in body; from line 22 to 25, as mentioned above, the contrast is between the way pets are treated and the hostility their owners show towards the refugees; from line 25 to 30 animals are said to be freer than human beings because they 'have no politicians'. It is typical of Auden to mix up different registers and different styles. Here he uses a device which is common in colloquial speech, the lack of subject in the first line of each stanza. The stanza form is regular, the whole poem is written in tercets; the rhyme scheme is AAB and regular as well. Repetition is widely used at line level and stanza level. There is the presence of a refrain, 'my dear' which is repeated in the third line of each stanza. Repetitions and the presence of a refrain are meant to give rhythm, make the emotional impact on the readers stronger and remind us of a song as the title itself suggests. The poet's message is about some relevant social issues such as social injustice, lack of solidarity, isolation and homelessness. The Unknown Citizen The poet presents the monotonous life of a man who has conformed himself to the State, losing his happiness and his ability to rebel. It describes a modern society in which there was a reversal of values and in which the individual becomes anonymous. This main theme is presented through the description of the seemingly perfect life of an "unknown citizen", who "was a saint". This affirmation could suggest a perfect way of life, but shows the behaviour of a man who has no opinion, who is "saint", not because he has values, but because he is submissive to the will of the State. There is a contrast between the form of the poem and its content because, on the one hand, the form seems to describe the behaviour of a perfect and famous man, who has distinguished himself within the society; on the other hand, the content-dedication is a sort of parody of the common man, who has lost his individuality and is constantly controlled by the State. Also, the title seems to allude to a monument erected by the State for great merits achieved by a common man. The language of the poem is colloquial and bureaucratic, but also, at times, ironic. There are some examples of irony, such as "Fudge Motors Inc." and "he was a saint": they are clear examples of the deceit that the State shows in order to hide the true reality of the human condition within a possible totalitarian regime. The characters of the poem are two: the unknown citizen and the State. The unknown citizen (He) is the modern man with his anonymous life, the State (Our) is the totalitarian state, which imposes itself by force, subtly. It is also possible that the unknown citizen is the Jew, persecuted by the totalitarian State during the Second World War. According to Auden, modern society is a dangerous dimension in which man loses his personality and becomes one like many others, significant only for what he can offer to the State, for his contribution (such as participation in the war). State control is not necessary but, however, is always present, though invisible. Society is a dimension of continuous control on man's life. In the modern State, since all goods are easily available, happiness becomes less important, at the same, also freedom. Modern man loses his freedom but is comforted by material goods on hand. The rhymes used are various: the poet at the beginning uses alternate rhymes, then he uses couplets. George Orwell He was the son of a minor colonial official. As a small child, he was taken to England by his mother. He began to develop an independent-minded personality, indifference to accepted values, and he professed atheism and socialism. He passed the India Office examinations for the Indian Imperial Police. Back in London, with social experiments, he directly experienced poverty and learned how institutions for the poor worked. After a period in Paris he decided to begin publishing his works with the pseudonym of George Orwell. In 1936 he married Eileen and in the same year Orwell was commissioned by a left-wing publisher to investigate conditions among the miners, factory workers. In December 1936 he went to Catalonia with his wife to report on the Spanish Civil War. When the Second World War broke out, he moved to London and in 1941 he joined the BBC, broadcasting cultural and political programmes in India. He died in 1950 of tuberculosis. Orwell had a deep understanding of the English character. His various experiences abroad contributed to his unusual ability to see his country from the outside and judge its strengths and weaknesses. Orwell chose to reject his background and to establish a separate identity of his own→ he was receptive to new ideas and impressions. His desire to inform, to reveal facts and draw conclusions from them led him to believe that writing interpreted reality and therefore served a useful social function. Orwell believed that the writer should be independent. He insisted on tolerance and justice in human relationships and warned against the increasing artificiality of urban civilisation. He strongly criticised totalitarianism, warning against the violation of liberty and helping his readers to recognise tyranny in all its forms. Nineteen Eighty-Four The novel is set in a state of perpetual war. The society reflects the political atmosphere of the tyrannies in Spain, Germany and the Soviet Union. That’s why the novel is pervaded by descriptions of hunger, forced labour, mass torture and imprisonment, and perpetual monitornig by the authorithies. The “character” of Big Brother is both Stalin and Hitler; so Orwell made clear that he was against any form of totalitarianism. The setting of the novel is Oceania (that includes the Americas, the Atlantic Islands and South Africa). The story takes place in London in the year 1984. Orwell wants the reader to see the class distinction, so Oceania’s political structure is divided into three segments: ● the Inner Party→ the ruling class, less than 2% of the population. ● the Outer Party→ the educated workers. ● the Proles→ the working class. The sense of loss is symbolised by the protagonist Winston Smith. He’s physically weak, he experiences alienation from society and feels a desire for spiritual and moral integrity. His main concern is the manipulation of history by the Party and he fears the moment when no one will have any memories of actual history. He’s in love with Julia and he remains loyal to her until his last torture experience. Julia is more naive and pessimistic about the Party. She falls in love with Winston, which is considered a big crime by the Party. O’Brien is a member of the Inner Party that tricks them into believing that he belongs to the secret Brotherhood; he’s a misterious character and is the main agent of Winston’s torture. Winston attempts to write a diary in which private memory is defended against the official attempts to rewrite history. Orwell established a model of what the world should not become by presenting a frightening picture of the future as being under the constant control of “Big Brother”. There is no privacy because there are monitorns called “telescreens”watching every step people take. The novel does not offer consolation but reveals the author’s acute sense of history and his sympathy with the millions of people persecuted and murdered in the name of the totalitarian ideologies of the 20th century. Plot The story is set in 1984, in a chilling dystopian reality and the world is dominated by 3 totalitarian states: Oceania (composed of the Americas, the British Isles called "Airstrip One" in the novel, Iceland, Australia, New Zealand, Polynesia, and Southern Africa below the River Congo), East-Asia (China and Taiwan, Japan, and Korea.), Eurasia. The main character is Winston Smith, a humble man who works in London (which is now located in Oceania). He is an ordinary guy whose job is to rewrite history in order to bring it in line with political thinking. The atmosphere is really sinister: every single person is brainwashed into obedience, worshipping "The Big Brother". The Brotherhood is a secret organisation whose purpose is to defeat the current government. Smith is not sure whether this group exists or not, but he eventually decides to rebel against Big Brother. He has a forbidden affair with a girl who works with him in the Ministry of Truth (which is, of course, something strictly forbidden by the rules because it can cause deviant thought) and they join The Brotherhood together. They are soon found out and punished in Room 101, the torture chamber inside the Ministry of Love. They both are tortured, brainwashed and then forced into cheating on their partners. The torture is meant to completely destroy their humanity and dignity. The novel sadly ends with an indifferent Smith, who feels "happy" and satisfied worshipping The Big Brother. Winston is the hero of this story because, even if he lost, he rebelled and tried his best against the government. Big Brother is watching you At the beginning of the novel, the narrator describes a world where the government has total control on the life of the citizens, whose private and public actions are watched through telescreens and helicopters. As to telescreens, they give news about politics and economy and catch whatever people do and say. No one knows when the Thought Police, whose task is of controlling and manipulating people’s thoughts and opinions, connects itself to telescreens. As a consequence, you can only be alone in silence and darkness. Moreover, in streets and in buildings there are huge posters showing Big Brother: an enormous face with a thick black moustache and strong features which remind of Stalin. The eyes of Big Brother follow you when you move. The posters also have captions which read “Big Brother is watching you”. Then the protagonist, Winston Smith, is introduced. His name reminds of Winston Churchill, but his surname, which is a very common one, makes him an ordinary man and a sort of anti-hero. Winston Smith is 39 years old and works for the Ministry of Truth. As to his physical appearance, he’s blond and rather small; his face is naturally of a red color and he has a varicose ulcer. His poor health mirrors his inner suffering. Finally, London is described from Winston’s point of view. London is made up of decayed buildings where electricity and lifts don’t work. Moreover, it was bombed in many areas. Winston tries to remember how London was when he was a child but his efforts are useless. Room 101 In Room 101, O’Brien straps Winston to a chair, then clamps Winston’s head so that he cannot move. He tells Winston that Room 101 contains “the worst thing in the world.” He reminds Winston of his worst nightmare—the dream of being in a dark place with something terrible on the other side of the wall—and informs him that rats are on the other side of the