Scarica Modernism & Stream of Consciousness in Joyce's Dubliners e più Appunti in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! MODERNISM This was a very complex age from a Historical point of view. This complexity mirrors in the literary production of the age. In particular, the year 1910 seems to be a dividing line in the history of the novel because the years following 1910 were characterized by a real revolution in the English literature. This has been called MODERNISM. Novelists experimented new forms of novel and they focused on the mental process of the human mind. The new generations of writers wanted to write about real life but real life - they thought - couldn't be found in the traditional novel. Modern writers were greatly influenced by Freud and his psychoanalysis and they wanted to go beyond the rational mind, they wanted to dig (scavare) into the irrational world, so their attention shifts from external events to our reaction to these events. The modern novel was influenced also by other important philosopher of the time: - William James - In his works “principles of psychology” he stated that consciousness flows like a river or a stream so the definition is stream of consciousness; - Henri Bergson who worked out a new idea of time. He stated that inner time has a duration that eludes conventional clock time. Reality becomes a matter of personal impressions and the attention of the writer is concentrated on the character’s mind. - Virginia Woolf wrote an essay on modern fiction and she agrees that the task of the novelist is to represent life but life is not what we find in a traditional novel with its plot, its comic and tragic elements. Virginia Woolf had in mind a new idea of consciousness. The definition stream of consciousness is due to William James. It is the attempt (tentativo) to convey the continuous flow of the mind and its medium (il suo mezzo) is the interior monologue. It is the monologue of the mind with itself. The traditional mediation between characters and reader is abolished. The reader is taken indside the character's mind and he can follow his thoughts as they appear and disappear in the flow (nel flusso) of consciousness. (il lettore entra direttamente nella mente dei personaggi. A volte i pensieri del personaggio non sono completi quindi è difficile capire il significato di quello che si legge. Per esempio è molto difficile comprendere le opere di Joyce). JAMES JOYCE Joyce belongs to a catholic family and he studied in a catholic school. He was an intellectual. His relation ship with Ireland and in particular with Dublin, where he was born, was always difficult. He had his roots (aveva le sue radici) in Dublin, but at a certain point of his life he decided to leave Ireland and to go into exile because he wasn't accepted by his people, the Dubliners. So he started to travel. He lived in France, in Italy (in Trieste particularly). But all his works are set in Dublin, so Dublin is always present in his works. Joyce's first work is Dubliners that is a collection of 15 short stories. In Dubliners, the way of writing is not completely new, there is still a plot. It's half way between the traditional way of writing and modernism. The new will come later, particularly in Ulysses. DUBLINERS is a collection of 15 stories divided into 4 different groups: 1) The first is about the childhood 2) The second is about adolescence 3) The third is about maturity 4) the fourth is about public life. All the stories have something in common: - The setting: all the stories are settled in Dublin - The theme: the theme of paralysis. There are 2 different kinds of paralysis in Dubliners: 1) Physical paralysis - in the first short stories “the sisters” the main character is a child who weaknesses the progressive physical paralysis of his friend (a priest) who dies at the beginning of the story 2) Psychological paralysis - “Eveline” belongs to the second group (stories about adolescence). There is a psychological kind of paralysis here, because Eveline is ready to leave her house, her life but in the end she can't move, she is paralyzed, she is unable to leave her difficult and sad life in Dublin. The places described by Joyce are sad and monotonous. The greyness is pervading and this colour conveys an idea of sadness. “EVELINE” Eveline played with her brother and friends. Some of them are dead, some other have left Dublin. From the beginning, we understand that her relationship with her father was difficult. He didn't want them to play. But she considered he was not so bad then as he is now, also because her mother was alive at the time. Eveline talks about her life. Her life is very hard because she is obliged to work both at home (she is the only woman) and at work where her boss is very strict with her. Eveline knows she is going to leave her life, but she doesn't know if her decision is right or not. While Eveline is thinking about her life, we can find out more and more about her relationship with her father. She mentions violence. This relation is very very difficult also because she has decided to leave. We discover her father gets drunk and when he drinks, he becomes very violent and he refuses to give her the money to buy food. She works and gives all her money to her family, but her father didn't do the same. It is a fight. Even if her life is hard, she is sure of what she has while her future life is a mystery for her.
