Evolution of Interior Monologue in Joyce's Dubliners & Ulysses: Study on Modern Novelists, Dispense di Inglese

Scarica Evolution of Interior Monologue in Joyce's Dubliners & Ulysses: Study on Modern Novelists e più Dispense in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! Modernism. The term ‘Modernism’ refers to an international movement. Modernism as a literary movement is typically associated with the period after World War I. The horror of the war had shaken the certainties of the pre-war society, which were replaced by a sense of disillusionment and fragmentation. The Modernists expressed the desire to break with the past and find new fields of investigation, such as urbanization, technology, war, speed and mass communication. The modern novel. The novelist was a mediator between the characters and the reader, relating significant events and incidents in chronological order in a more or less objective ways. The shift from the Victorian to the modern novel was caused by a gradual but substantial transformation of British society, which in a few years passed from the comfortable world of the Victorians to the inter-war years. The urgency for social change and, from a literary point of view, the pressing need for different forms of expression, forced novelists into a position of moral and psychological uncertainty. The novelist had a new role, which consisted in mediating between the solid and unquestioned values of the past and the confused present, highlighting the complexity of the unconscious. Two other factors contributed to the development of the modern novel: the new concept of time and the new theory of the unconscious which derived from the Freudian influence. The modern novelist rejected omniscient narration. He experimented with new methods to portray the individual consciousness; the viewpoint shifted from the external world to the internal world of a character’s mind. Time was subjective and internal: if the distinction between past and present was almost meaningless in psychological terms, then there was no point in building a well-structured plot, with chronological sequence of events. The narrative technique that modern novelists mainly employed was the so-called stream of consciousness, the continuous flow of thoughts and sensation that characterize the human mind. The interior monologue is the verbal expression of this psychic phenomenon. The interior monologue. At the beginning of the 20th century, writers gave more and more importance to subjective consciousness and understood it was impossible to reproduce the complexity of the human mind using traditional techniques; so they looked for more suitable means of expression. 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: it is the verbal expression of a psychic phenomenon, the stream of consciousness; it is characterized by the frequent lack of chronological order; the narrator may be present; the action takes place within the character’s mind. There are two basic kinds of interior monologue, indirect and direct. In the indirect interior monologue, the narrator never lets the character’s thoughts flow without control, and maintains logical and grammatical organization. The character’s thoughts are presented both directly and by adding descriptions or comments. The character stays fixed in space while his\her consciousness moves freely in time. The direct interior monologue with two levels of narration is characterized 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. The extreme interior monologue was used by Joyce in Finnegans Wake: here the narration takes place inside the mind of the main character, while he is dreaming. James Joyce.  1882: born in Dublin, the eldest surviving child of ten children.  1888-1898: largely educated by the Jesuits, first at Clongowes Wood College and later Belvedere College.  1899: studied Modern Languages at University College, Dublin.  Grew up as a rebel among rebels.  In contrast with Yeats and the other literary contemporaries who tried to rediscover the Irish Celtic identity.  His interest was for a broader European culture, and this led him to begin to think of himself as a European rather than an Irishman.  In June 1904 he met and fell in love with Nora Barnacle, a twenty-year-old girl who was working as a chambermaid in a hotel.  The setting of most of his works Ireland, especially Dublin.🡺  He rebelled against the Catholic Church.  All the facts in his narratives explored from different points of view simultaneously.🡺  Greater importance given to the inner world of the characters.  Time perceived as subjective.🡺  His task to render life objectively. Isolation and detachment of the artist from society.🡺  Realism; Disciplined prose; Different points of view; Free-direct speech  Dubliners  Third-person narration; Minimal dialogue; Language and prose used to portray the protagonist’s state of mind; Free-direct speech.  A portrait of the artist as a young man  Interior monologue with two levels of narration; Extreme interior monologue.  Ulysses  The Dublin represented by Joyce is not fixed and static, it is ‘the revolutionary montage of “Dublins” through a range of historical juxtapositions and varied styles’. The 15 stories of the Dubliners, though set in the same city, are not united by their geography: each story has a singular location. The evocation of his town in A Portrait of the Artist is deeply influenced by Joyce’s prolonged temporal and spatial distance; Dublin is filtered through Stephen’s mind. In Ulysses, Dublin overwhelms the reader. Dubliners.  Published in 1914 in the newspaper The Irish Homestead by Joyce with the pseudonym Stephen Dedalus.  Dubliners are described as afflicted people.  All the stories are set in Dublin ‘The city seemed to me the centre of paralysis’, Joyce 🡺 stated.  Naturalistic, concise, detailed descriptions.  Realism mixed with symbolism deeper meaning of external details.🡺  Each story opens in medias res and is mostly told from the perspective of a character.  Use of free-direct speech and free-direct thought direct presentation of the 🡺 character’s thoughts.  Different linguistic registers the language suits the age, the social class and the role 🡺 of the characters.  Use of epiphany ‘the sudden spiritual manifestation’ of an interior reality.🡺  Themes paralysis and escape.🡺  Absence of a didactic and moral aim because of the impersonality of the artist.  Joyce’s aim to take the reader beyond the usual aspects of life through epiphany: It 🡺 is the special moment in which a trivial gesture, an external object or a banal situation or an episode lead the character to a sudden self-realisation about himself\herself or about the reality surrounding him / her. Understanding the epiphany in each story is the key to the story itself.  The main theme of Dubliners paralysis: Physical paralysis caused by external forces; 🡺 Moral paralysis linked to religion, politics and culture.  The climax of the stories the coming to awareness by the characters of their own 🡺 paralysis. used to voice the unspoken activity of the mind. Foreign words, literary quotations and allusions to other texts are other important linguistic features. George Orwell.  Rejection of his English background he accepted new ideas and impressions.🡺  Conflict between middle-class education and emotional identification with the working class.  The role of the artist to inform, to reveal facts and draw conclusions from them social 🡺 🡺 function.  Influence of Dickens in the choice of: social themes; realistic language; misery caused by poverty; deprivation of society.  Criticism of totalitarianism, the violation of liberty and tyranny in all its forms. Nineteen eighty-four.  Subject: Life in a big totalitarian system, Oceania; Airstrip One, a future England, is an outpost of Oceania.  Structure: Introduction of the protagonist, Winston Smith, in this oppressive world. Winston & Julia’s love happiness. Winston’s imprisonment and torture.🡺  Setting: London, in the mythical country of Oceania, 1984 (in the future). London: a desolated city governed by terror and the constant control of BIG BROTHER.  Ranking order in Oceania: Oceania is a huge country ruled by The Party. The Inner Party (less than 2% of population) controls the country. The Outer Party (18-19% of population), the educated workers. The Proles (ca 80% of population) are the labour power who live in poverty. The Brotherhood is an underground rebel organisation.  A dystopian novel: A frightening picture of the future. The Party controls everything: Ministry of Truth, Ministry of Love; slogan ‘freedom is slavery’. No privacy: TELESCREEN. A perpetual state of war: Two Minutes Hate. The Party provides for everything. Punishment against the rebels.  Newspeak: Newspeak is the official language of Oceania. The goal of the Party is to have Newspeak replace Oldspeak (standard English). Newspeak eliminates undesirable words and invents new words – all to force Party conformity. Aim: to eliminate literature, thoughts and consciousness.  Doublethink: Doublethink is the manipulation of the mind by making people accept contradictions. Doublethink makes people believe that the Party is the only institution that knows right from wrong. The Ministry of Truth (where Winston works) changes history, facts and memories to promote Doublethink historical reference to Stalin’s will to 🡺 change history.  The protagonist: Winston Smith: The name ‘Smith’ is the commonest English surname so the hero is a sort of Everyman. His experience: alienation from society; rebellion against the Party; search for spiritual and moral integrity. In the first two parts of the novel, Winston expresses Orwell’s point of view.  Characters: Big brother: Big Brother is the perceived ruler of Oceania he looks like a 🡺 combination of Hitler and Stalin. Big Brother’s God-like image is stamped on coins and projected on telescreens his gaze is unavoidable. Julia: is Winston’s lover. She is a 🡺 beautiful, dark-haired woman who enjoys sex and claims she has had affairs with many Party members.  Themes: Importance of memory and trust. Abolition of individuality and reality. Satire against hierarchical societies.  Style and tone: Documentary realism; Parody and satire. Pessimistic tone: No 🡺 consolation, but cruel reality. The author sympathises with persecuted people.🡺  Author’s aim: To inform. To reveal facts and draw conclusions from them. To give an interpretation of reality. Beckett. (nobel prize for literature) Waiting for Godot:  No setting but a desolate country road and a bare tree.  Time: no development in time, only a repetitive meaningless present.  Plot: two tramps are waiting for a mysterious Godot who never turns up.  Structure: circular structure it ends almost exactly as it begins. The two acts are 🡪 symmetrically built the stage is divided into two halves by a tree, the human races into 🡪 two, Vladimir and Estragon.  Characters: no characters in the traditional sense. The two protagonists, Vladimir and Estragon, are two human beings concerned with questions about the nature of the self, the world and God. The two protagonists, Vladimir and Estragon are complementary. Lucky and Pozzo are physically linked by a rope and by a relationship of master and servant. Vladimir and Lucky represent the intellect. Estragon and Pozzo stand for the body. The two couples are mutually dependent. The character are two tramps waiting for Godot 🡪 Biblical allusions in this name.  Themes: Dreariness and meaningless of human life. A static world where nothing happens. Absence of any traditional time there is no past, present and future, just a repetitive 🡪 present. Man’s increased knowledge has only made him aware of the uselessness of his learning.  Style: Disintegration of language absurd exchanges, broken and fragmented dialogues. 🡪 Use of para-verbal language: mime, silences, pauses and gaps. A grotesque humour. The tone is tragic and desperate. The present age.  BRITAIN AFTER WWII: The Second World War ended on May 1945. Sir Winston’s Churchill’s coalition government was dissolved. A new election was held in July and the Labour Party won. Clement Attlee was the new Prime Minister. His government is remembered for the creation of the Welfare State. The Welfare State: The phrase came into use during the war in contrast with Hitler’s Warfare State. It refers to the services through which the central government and local authorities assumed the responsibility of the social well-being of citizens. Social security most urgent problem for people who fail to have enough to live 🡪 on because they are unemployed, ill, too old or pregnant. 1946 The National Health 🡪 Service was established by law as universal and free. 1946 the New Towns Act and the 🡪 Town and Country Planning Act clearance of slums, building of large housing estates, 🡪 creation of green areas. 1946 National Insurance Act a system of social security 🡪 🡪 🡪 unemployment and sickness benefits, retirement pensions, child allowances.  THE AFFLUENT SOCIETY IN THE 1950s: The post-war years: The standard of living of the lowest classes was raised. Most families bought cars, installed telephones, washing machines and refrigerators, and began to buy their own homes. In 1955 ITV, a new commercial television network, started to broadcast its shows paid through advertising. The decline of the empire: Immigrants from the Caribbean, Africa and Asia began to arrive in Britain in the 1950s. They took up the British government’s invitation to fill the jobs of workers who had died in the war. They had to face prejudice in everyday life. They decided to stay and are now an integral part of British culture and society.  A cultural revolution: The 1960s were characterised by a transformation in British ideas and modes of behaviour. Openness to attitudes from the Continent and the United States. Arguments of a civilised and tolerant society put forward by politicians. 1960 a step 🡪 towards the freedom of the written word with the publication of D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover. 1961 The contraceptive pill appeared. 1965 capital punishment for🡪 🡪 murder was suspended. 1966 Mary Quant was producing the miniskirt, which was set 🡪 about 7 inches above the knee. The Beatles and The Rolling Stones brought new vitality to popular culture. 1967 was an annus mirabilis as regards sexual mores: Abortion Act 🡪 abortion on the NHS. National Health Service (Family Planning) Act contraception on the 🡪 NHS. Sexual Offences Act homosexuality no longer a crime. Divorce Reform Act (1969). 🡪 Matrimonial Property Act (1970) a wife’s work regarded as an equal contribution to the 🡪 family.  The Seventies: In the 1970s England experienced: states of emergency five times; economic contraction; In 1973 the UK joined the European Economic Community; there was the Oil crisis. 4th May 1979: Margaret Thatcher (the leader of the Tory Party) became Prime Minister. Philip Larkin. He praised Thomas Hardy, who had allowed him to understand that commonplace events from daily life were fit for poetry. The sense of time, nature and childhood are introduced by Larkin in his poems without any sentimentality, and the approach is dry and true-to-life. Larkin’s poetry deals with disillusionment, defeat, solitude, death, isolation and boredom, and it is dominated by a deep pessimism. There is never happiness, hope or love in it: man cannot be comforted either by love, since it is full of obstacles, or by the past, with which he is not able to establish any contact, because it is irrelevant to present. Thus old age is seen as a decline of man and is characterized by loneliness. Larkin’s poems usually present a casual, easy-going start, and end up in serious reflection and philosophical questioning. Their language is argumentative, objective and colloquial. Two important symbols recur in Larkin’s poetry: the photograph, which stands for the past since it freezes what happened, and the room, which represent loneliness.