modernist writers joyce woolf, Appunti di Inglese

Scarica modernist writers joyce woolf e più Appunti in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! MODERNIST WRITERS - transformation of british society from comfortable (victorian age) to inter-war years = shift from victorian novel to modern novel - new role of the novelist: mediating between unquestioned values of the past and the confused present - no omniscient narrator - new methods to portrait individual consciousness = character's mind became fundamental. - influenced by the theories about the simultaneous existence of different levels of consciousness and subconsciousness. - Subjective concept of time = no chronological order of events - use of the stream of consciousness technique (joyce in particular): representation of interior monologues and flows of thought of the character - Some novelists were known as psychological novelists because they centered attention on the development of the character’s mind and relationships. (conrad, lawrence, forster) - they give voice to human mind JOYCE - born in Dublin - he try to increase Ireland’s awareness by offering a realistic point of its life from a European and cosmopolitan viewpoint - went into a voluntary exile at 22 years old but set his works in Dublin and Ireland. - His effort was to give a portrait of ordinary life of the ordinary people; in this way he can also represent the mental and emotional reality that he fuses with the cultural heritage of modern civilization and the natural world around him. - true image of reality (life as it is) - technique: - different point of view - free direct speech - epiphany - interior monologue - language broken down (reality became the place of psychological projections, symbolic archetypes and cultural knowledge) DUBLINERS - representation of Dublin situation of that time - 15 short stories that discloses human situations and moments of intensity and lead to a moral, social or spiritual revelations - Settled in Dublin defined by Joyce as the center of paralysis - Dublin represented under four aspect: childhood, adolescence(eveline), mature life, public life(the dead) - “The dead” is considered out from the other fourteen stories because of its density and more elaboration. Represent the climax of dubliners and Joyce’s first masterpiece. Epiphany: - narrative technique used to take the reader beyond the usual aspect of life - it is the “sudden spiritual manifestation” caused by a trivial gesture or a banal situation that led the character to suddenly a self realisation about himself or about the reality around him. - “dubliners” is a sequence of multiple epiphanies that offer a revelation of the city and its paralysis Paralysis: - word that represents Dublin condition - It’s a resulting of the external and moral forces linked to religion politics and culture - it affect all the dubliners that they are slaves of moral, religious, cultural lives - They main themes linked to paralysis is the failure to find a way out of paralysis - people with this feeling live as exile in their home unable to break with their state of paralysis Narrative technique: - story told by the perspective of a character - narrated monologue in the form of direct speech - direct presentation of the protagonist’s thoughts (sometimes withe stream of consciousness) - varied register - Joyce elevate his characters as myth EVELINE - "Eveline'' is a short narrative by the writer James Joyce, contained and presented within the collection 'Dubliners'. - It tells of a young girl called Eveline Hill, just nineteen years old, who looks out of her window with curious eyes, trying to understand through observation what might be happening outside. - There she sees a man, probably a musician, playing an organ, and the melody reminds her of a tune she had heard before her mother's death. - Evelin is assailed by memories of her childhood. She is reminded of her father, a man who was a bit variable towards her, because sometimes he treated her badly and sometimes he was good towards her. - She thinks about her job as a saleswoman in a small warehouse and feels disappointed and dissatisfied, also because of her (datrice di lavoro) employer's behaviour towards her and so she decides to leave, after all she had nothing to lose. - Eveline decides to go away to Buenos Aires, together with Frank, her boyfriend who was a sailor. Prior to her departure, she wrote two letters to two loved ones: one to her brother Harry and the other to her father. - About to leave Eveline is paralyzed and will not board the ship with Frank. This represents her resignation to living in a room without love and freedom due to love for family and a sense of duty Characters - Eveline ➔ passive, influenced by her family’s mentality - Her father ➔ a violent and strict man ➔ her fear - Her mother ➔ conservative ➔ her duty - Frank ➔ Eveline’s fiancé, a very kind, open-hearted and brave boy ➔ her unknown future (epiphany - instrument to reach freedom) There is an Antithesis between Eveline’s house and her new one in Buenos Aires, to symbolize Paralysis/Escape. Structure and style - The story opens in medias res ➔ ‘She sat at the window watching the evening invade the avenue’ - Third-person narrator but Eveline’s point of view. -The story revolves around doubles, a dead boy who is a constant presence, Gabriel is a weaker presence for Gretta. -the question is how can you compete with a dead man? He leaves her there in bed desolate and he stands at the window looking out, like the first short story eveline, he stands looking out of the window ->CIRCULARITY OF EVENTS -He in poor health wanted to say goodbye to her, he goes under her window but it was raining, he caught a cold and died, he died for her. She feels guilty and responsible for what happens. Last two pages: -she's asleep and he watches her, strong and detailed description, he thinks he never really knew her and he feels the young love is alive because it gives her important emotions. leaning on his elbow-> element that links us to eveline. -inner monologue, he retraces the events of the evening that led to that revelation, and then he makes the leap, he passes to the image of Aunt Julia who would soon die. He is making the transition from the. Moment of joy at Aunt Julie's funeral, he describes it indirectly, dressed in mourning with silk hat on his lap -> example of alliteration -each paragraph opens with a detail of the room. He returns to his feelings, says it would be better to pass into the other world with passion like Micheal rather than growing old. -closes with the image of snow, a poetic use of colour. Continues with the duality of black and white, light and dark. Language: alliteration, repetition of the verb fall. Snow-> element of death and purification, levelling element. Snow covers everything, the cemetery where Michael Furey lies, as well as the whole world. Snow is death that takes everything. No one can stop it, we are immobile in front of it, we can only watch it fall. ULYSSES - Ulysses was published in Paris in 1922. It was through the efforts of Sylvia Beach, the owner of the famous "Shakespeare & Co. Bookshop” in Paris, where the novel was eventually published. In England,Ulysses was banned for obscenity until 1936. - Ulysses is the epic hero of the Odyssey and in the novel of Joyce the adventure of this character is used as a parallel to the events in the life of women and men in Dublin. - In particular this novel focuses on the characters of Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus during the day. - Joyce uses the epic model to express the lack of heroism, love and ideas in the modern world. The epic structure is the mirror in which to reflect the modern aridity. THE STORY - This novel is the story of the day 16th June 1904 in the life of three characters. - Leopold Bloom is a dubliner, he has Jewish origin and he works as advertising agent He is the Ulysses of the title He wonders about Dublin as the Odyssey's Ulysses wonders about the sea. - But Bloom is less heroic, he is banal. During this day, Bloom wakes up, goes to a Turkish bath, attends a funeral, goes to his newspaper office, has lunch, goes to the library, goes to the pub, goes at the beach, visits a hospital, goes to a brothel where he meets Stephan Dedalus and he takes him home with him. Stephan Dedalus - is the central character of the first part. He is an intellectual and sensitive man, and he is frustrated by the Irish provincial life. He is not only in search of a house but also in search of a father figure, which will be Bioom. He is without a home and a father, and for this reason he corresponds to Telemachus, Ulysses son. In this character find the idea of the anti-hero as the one we can find in the inetto' by Svevo. In this way the myth of the hero Ulysses is totally overturned. Molly Bloom - is Leopold's wife, and she is the central character of the last part of the novel. She corresponds to Penelope, but Molly is unfaithful to her husband. The novel ends with the stream of consciousness during which Molly is in bed thinking about past and present. Stream of consciousness technique - In this novel there isn't a dramatic plot but the life of an individual in a single day. - Joyce describes the details of this day and the process of the characters' thoughts. - His technique is that of the "Stream of consciousness". - This is a difficult technique that has no grammatical and syntactical connectives and uses incongruous images. The aim is to reproduce the chaotic flow of the thoughts in the human mind. The thoughts are represented before they are organized by reason. For this reason it is possible to talk about the 'collage technique' that describes different moments all together. VIRGINIA WOOLF - Virginia Wooif was born in 1882. She spent her summers in Cornwall and the sea remains an important symbol in her writing. - For Viginia the water represents the harmony, and the feminine but it represents also the possibility to overcome the conflicts. - With her sister she became a member of the Bloomsbury group which included many important figures of the 20th century. - In 1925 she published Mrs Dalloway in which she experimented new narrative techniques The Second World War increased her anxiety and finally she drowned herself in 1941 A modernist novelist - Woolf wanted to express feelings and memories of the human personality as a continuous stream. She was interested in the impressions of the events on the characters. - In her novels there is no omniscient narrator and the point of view is that of the characters' minds through flashbacks, associations of ideas and momentary impressions presented as a continuous flux. Her contribution to modernism is made clear in her essay "Modern Fiction". Woolf vs Joyce - Joyce and Wolf used the technique called Stream of consciousness, the continuous flow of thoughts and sensations that characterise the human mind. - Joyce’s characters express their thoughts through the interior monologue also in incoerent way - Woolf maintains a logical and grammatical organization. She uses the stream of consciousness with the third person and past verbs, in this way she gives the impression of a connection between past and present. - While Joyce was more interested in language experimentation and worked through the accumulation of details, Woolf’s use of words was almost poetic, allusive and emotional. - Similar to Joyce’s “epiphanies” are Woolf’s “moments of being”, the moments lived by the characters when they can understand reality without appearances. Mrs DALLOWAY - It is a novel in which the technique of the stream of consciousness is visible: the walks through London and the ringing of Big Ben are stimuli to enter Clarissa's mind and follow her thoughts. - In addition to Clarissa Dalloway, there is a second character who acts as Clarissa's alter ego: Septimus Warren Smith, a World War I veteran who suffers from shell shock, a strong psychological discomfort. - His wife, Lucrezia, tried to help him, she called a doctor but he is subject to hallucinations and before the end of the novel he killed himself. - Clarissa is informed of his desperate act during her own party and she starts to cry of her past love and to reflect on the importance and beauty of life. Settings: - This novel is set on a single day in June 1923 and follows the protagonists in a small area of London from morning to night. - Unlike Joyce, she does not elevate her characters as myths, but shows their humanity behind their masks. - Initially there is a cheerful situation; but through the "Tunnelling Technique" she begins to bring to light events that reconnect with their past, delving into their personal history. - Clarissa's party is the climax of the novel and unifies the narrative through what Clarissa thinks of the protagonists during the day. Themes: - One of the most important themes is the changing society, expressed through the spread of newspapers, the increasing use of cars and aeroplanes, the new rules within marriages.