Exploring Modernist Literature: Ulysses, Virginia Woolf, and Animal Farm, Sintesi del corso di Inglese

Scarica Exploring Modernist Literature: Ulysses, Virginia Woolf, and Animal Farm e più Sintesi del corso in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! THE NOVEL IN THE 20th CENTURY 1. The Victorian novel was anchored in a social world the values of which were shared by the writer and his readers. The context was familiar. 2. The author was the intermediary between the characters and the readers, describing the event in a more in a more or less objective way 3. Chronological order 4. The inter-war years changed all that 5. Authors had to mediate between the values of the past and a confused present 6. A shift from society to man, perceived as a limited creature inferior to his technological progress 7. Attention to man’s mind: different levels of consciousness, the memories from the past influence the present. In psychology, there is no difference between past and present, so there is no use of a well- structured plot or chronological order. The passing of time is useless 8. William James coined the phrase stream of consciousness to define the continuous flow of thoughts and sensations that characterize human mind 9. Now a character is an individual with an inner life 10. To reproduce the complex of human mind, the writers introduced the interior monologue to represent the unspoken activity of mind before it is ordered in speech  The direct interior monologue  No chronological order  No punctuation  No logical order  2 levels of narration: external and internal to the character’s mind  No introduction expressions  The indirect interior monologue  Presence of the narrator  Introduction expressions  The character is fixed in space while his consciousness moves in time JOYCE 1. He was born in Dublin in 1881 in a large middle-class family 2. His father John affected him because he took and lost many jobs, slowly descending the social ladder along with his family 3. In 1888 he was sent to a Jesuit school (Clongowes wood college) and despite he abandoned the religious doctrines, he retained the discipline and the intellectual subtlety of the Jesuits ( his stay there inspired a portrait of the artist as a young man) 4. The movement for freeing Ireland from English dominance didn’t attract him ( the Abbey Theatre (1904) which opposed bareness and simplicity to the over-elaborated theatres ,the poetic revival. Irish plays on Irish subjects played by Irish actors in politics, Parnell was the protestant leader of the Irish home rule movement who wanted to separate from England. His political career was destroyed by his adulterous affair with Kathy Oshed, wife of an MP). His father was a supporter of Parnell, but after Parnell’s death he became dethatched from the nationalist movement, as Joyce himself. Also the Irish repaid Joyce’s indifference by neglecting his works. He got interested in European culture. He came under the influence of Ibsen, seen as an immoral and a morbid intellectual 5. He entered the University College (catholic institution) in Dublin where he studied French, Italian and German. In 1902 he took his degree and left Ireland for Paris. He was convinced that a cosmopolitan European portrait of Ireland was useful to increase Irish awareness 6. His mother’s death brought him back to Ireland where started a dissolute life. Alcohol addiction, prostitutes, waste of money (self- destruction). In 1904 he met Nora Barnacle, a chamber maid, who was to become his life-long companion and went on voluntary exile from the continent (they met on June 16 which became the blooms day in Ulysses). Nora was a simple country girl whose father was a heavy drinker and kept his family poor (like Joyce’s). They married many years later, after the birth of their children. They first established in  Food: is a reminder of routine. MODERNISM 1. Modernism is a complex cultural movement that started in 1910 and flourished in the 20s and 30s. 2. It involved all forms of art: Picasso broke with fixed perspective and explored multiple planes. Modernism had its epicenter in Paris where the most important members of all arts used to meet. 3. Modernism started with a clean break from traditional arts and started experimentation. The attention shifted from society to the individual and its self, and no longer on society of which the individual had formerly been the mirror. 4. The modernism novel is fragmentary and favors subjective perception whereas the idea of one single truth is rejected. 5. Before the breakout of WW1, novelists had followed the tradition, but the experience of ear, where thousands had died, had shattered their faith in institutions 6. Hundreds of factory workers were de-humanized in factories, and later were sent to death in war 7. Mass-culture had been the result of universal education and had created a demand for popular literature that modernist rejected. They started writing difficult avant-garde novels that could be understood by a small elite. 8. Modernist novelists were also shocked by effects of war and mechanized society on the individual and wanted to recover the unique experience of the individual by exploring his/her inner world. 9. Modernist novelists were aware of the absence of values, due to: a) Freud’s theory of the unconscious in his 4 interpretation of dreams (1900). He presented the human consciousness as multi-layered. It includes different levels of experience and memory and the most important is the unconscious that can be accessed through dreams. The human conscious behavior was shaped by the irrational drives which were established during childhood, when the experiences made early in life continue to influence adult life. This meant that the individual organizes the experiences from the outside world in a subjective way  the world is not rationally ordered b) Henry Bergson “time and free wills was in contrast to the Victorian positivism and faith in progress and science. He argued that time cannot be measured in units (seconds, minutes, etc.) because it is a continuous flow and not a series of points: we perceive the world in a continuous way, it’s like a melody that we hear as a whole and not as a series of disjointed notes. Time is a duration not linear, a mixture of past, present and future (cinema first indicated that movement cannot be reduced to a single fixed image). Bergson says that our consciousness of the present is already memory for the movement we know we have experienced some hing. It has already passed. Practically we perceive only the past as a multitude of remembered elements  chronological order is useless, the author deals with the direct representation of a character’s thoughts, feelings and memories c) William James’ principles of psychology (1890) where human consciousness is presented as something that flows as a whole and ait included pre-speech experiences. It’s like a river or a stream that flows. Hence the Term “stream of consciousness. This term indicates the psychic phenomenon. In literature it’s translated into the interior monologue that is concerned with the area beyond communication there are two levels: speech level that can be communicated orally or writing, and pre-speech level that is not logically and rationally controlled. An analogy is with an iceberg, of which the stream of consciousness novel explores the submerged part. The novelist must deal with the part that lies below (dreams, memories, etc.) and analyze how this process works. The interior monologue is fundamental to explore mental activity. If our consciousness flows and combines past, present, future the interior monologue proceeds by flashbacks, flashforwards, metaphors, no chronological order, no grammar rules, no punctuation, no logic, no omniscient narrator. 10. The interior monologue can be divided into: a) Indirect interior monologue, where is the thoughts of a character are presented directly without the presentation of a narrator (Molly Bloom) b) Indirect interior monologue where the character’s thoughts are filtered through an anonymous third person narrator (Mrs. Dalloway) VIRGINIA WOOLF  Virginia Woolf was born in London in 1882 of a well-to do family. Her father Leslie Stephen was an essay and the editor of the English dictionary of national biography. Her mother was a beautiful and sensitive woman.  Virginia and her 3 brothers were educated at home and received lessons of Greek from Swiss and French governess.  Her paradise was the family house at “Talland Houses” at St. Ives in Cornwall. There the family had relation with friends such as Henry James. Virginia loved the sound of the waves water represented harmony but also a deadly solution to conflicts.  Talland House was sold after Virginia’s mother’s death when the girl was only 13. She underwent a nervous breakdown. She couldn’t even stand her father’s aggressive attitude. In 1904 her father died, and Virginia attempted suicide in 1913 by taking drugs. Later, allows with her brothers, she moved to Bloomsbury square. At the time she thought English at Morley college.  Along with her sister Vanessa, she became a member of the Bloomsbury group which corresponded to the avant-garde. The other members were Keynes, Foster, and the publisher Leonard Woolf, that she married in 1912. With him, she founded the Mogarth Press. The Bloomsbury apostles, as the called themselves rejected the Victorian values. In politics they were anti-monarchist skeptical in religion, refined in art and they disliked brutality and vulgarity. Virginia was also committed in. the suffragette movement and felt that women’s subordinate position was an injustice. It last 12 hours, in June 1915 when Clarissa Dalloway is preparing a party for the evening. She meets a previous suitor, Peter Walsh, and so past and present intertwine. Peter is still obsessed with Clarissa’s refusal, and goes to Regent’s Park when her daughter Elizabeth comes in. The attention shifts to Septimus Warren-Smith who is a war veteran who suffers from mental illness caused by the war. Before, he had been a romantic poet who enlists for romantic ideals, but he doesn’t find England worth of his sacrifice, he has lost his best friend, Evans, during the war but Dr. Bradshaw, a famous psychiatrist, is unable to understand his problems and wants to separate from his Italian wife Lucrezia. Clarissa has some problems with her husband Richard who doesn’t know much of her, despite that he guarantees her independence. Septimus commits suicide when doctors arrive to take him to an asylum. Peter Walsh hears an ambulance that picks up Septimus’s body, Dr. Bradshaw tells his wife at Clarissa’s party of Septimus death, Clarissa who isn’t at ease with her life and fears that her daughter’s generation might repeat the errors of hers, feels sorry for Septimus. CHARACTER LIST  Clarissa: The events are narrated trough Clarissa’s point of view. She has bonds with people but is also self-reflective. She wonders about happiness and wants to find a balance between her desire of communication and the need of privacy. There is struggle between the external world that she cares and her inner world her trend for introspection makes her capable of profound emotions. She reflects over the decision of marrying Richard  security and tranquillity of an upper-class life. Peter Walsh represents passion she considers death with trepidation, but finally accepts her life.  Septimus he lives in his inner world and sees and listens things that don’t exist, including the voice of his dead friend, Evans. He is the spokesman of the insane truth, but his detachment makes him a good judge of people he’s Clarissa’s double because they both fear oppression and love Shakespeare, he’s her double because represents the morning class fighting for the opulent higher class. His suicide helps Clarissa and she accepts her choices.  Peter Walsh he’s ambivalent. He’s obsessed with Clarissa but denies his feelings. He confesses that loves another woman but ends up weeping. He is unpredictable, insecure, he’s critical of the others and has suffocated Clarissa when order is missing in his life, he deceives his thoughts of death by following a young woman in the London street.  Sally Seton: she lives in Clarissa’s memory for most of the novel before she arrives at the party. They are long-life friends and have known each other since the Bourton times, they had plotted to change this world. The kiss Sally had given on Clarissa’s lips had been the most exquisite in Clarissa’s life, maybe it’s an indication of a potentially homosexual affair, suffocated by English traditional society. Sally is effusive but now lives more distantly from the world.  Richard Dalloway: hard worker, simple, shy, and finds hard to communicate. He can’t appreciate the potentiality of Clarissa as a woman and does not encourage Elizabeth to find a job, making her unable to gain the freedom she needs unlike Septimus, he champions the traditional English values so he can’t accept that. A woman might live outside the rules of his society. SYMBOLS  The old man descending the staircase that Septimus sees before killing himself, the old woman opposite Clarissa’s house represents serenity, loneliness and the preservation of interior life and privacy.  Clarissa’s scissors represent her sexuality and Peter’s pocketknife represents his defensiveness and reveals how uncomfortable he is with his masculinity.  The prime minister represents the old English hierarchical values that are in decline. When he gets to Clarissa’s party, his arrival is unimpressive: the old English greatness has become pathetic. MOTIFS  Shakespeare represents hope, refuge in art. Clarissa reads Cymbeline, some lines from a funeral hymn and suggests that death is a release. Clarissa also identifies with Othello for her lost love (Sally Seton). Septimus appreciated Shakespeare before the war. Clarissa and Septimus in their appreciation for Shakespeare, are sensitive because Shakespeare promotes a discussion of feeling and emotion.  Time it is symbolized by the steadiness of Big Ben. It is ephemeral. All characters are in the grip of the time and reflect on how they have spent it. Time is important and Woolf has also decided call her novel “The hours time circular, and human condition has no boundaries of time”.  Flowers: suggest feeling and emotion. Clarissa is comfortable with flowers, Richard isn’t because he is more repressed. Trees represent human soul and are adored by Septimus and Clarissa. A human soul survives in trees after death.  Water: the plot structure is fluid and thoughts appear like waves. Clarissa navigates society, unlike septimus, Clarissa stays afloat. THEMES  Communication vs privacy. All characters struggle to find a balance between communication and privacy.  Fear of death: it’s constantly present. Clarissa has lost her parents and sister so she comes to believe that life is dangerous. Septimus’ death makes her to come to terms with death. Septimus fears death but he prefers it to life.  Oppression is a constant threat. Septimus takes away his life to escape oppression. Mr Bradshaw is oppressive. He wants to dominate the others but the message is oppressor of others Orwell 1. He was born in 1903 as Eric Blair. Orwell is the pen name he started using from 1933, since 1933 is when he published his first work. George sounded very English, Orwell is the name of a river he loves. 2. He was born in Bengal, the son of a British officer and his mother a member of the middle-class. His later life was a reaction against colonialism and the middle-class, the way he had known them in his family. 3. In 1911 he was sent to Britain to a public school. He was expected to work hard to won a scholarship for his parents couldn’t afford to pay the heavy fees of a public school. 4. He felt a sense of anxiety and he felt an outcast, bullied by his snobbish wealthier schoolmates. electricity, 9 dogs attack Snowball and chase him. Napoleon is the leader and when the windmill is swept away by a storm, he claims that Snowball is responsible for that and starts his purge and gets some animals killed. Napoleon re-writes history and makes Snowball a villain. He behaves like a human: trades with farmers, drinks, sleeps in bed. His propagandist Squealer convinces the animals that Napoleon is a great leader. Napoleon sells Boxer to a glue-maker to get money for whisky. Slowly the pigs grow indistinguishable from humans. Animal farm is changed back to Manor farm, he allies with Mr. Pilkington, the farmer against the laboring classes. CHARACTERS  Napoleon: (Stalin) uses his 9 puppies (military force) to consolidate his power. He doesn’t formulate any theory, he’s interested only in his strength. He’s only enthusiastic in educating the 9 puppies (his secret police). He represents all tyrants (Augustus, Mao, etc…).  Snowball: Trotsky, the ideologue. He wants to improve Animal Farm. His idealism caused his downfall. He’s also weak to Napoleon and megalomaniac (Windmill). He reminds that power itself corrupts.  Boxer: the best qualities of the working class: capacity for labor, loyalty, but too naive and unable to understand political corruption. He represents the invisible work and the force that holds the animals together.  Squealer: silver-tongued. With this character Orwell wants to show how politicians manipulate language. He simplifies or complicates language to confuse. He lacks consciousness. Squealer che grugnisce.  Old Major: an idealist but somehow false. He wants to manipulate the animals to support his vision. THEMES  The danger of the naïve working class, their inability to question the power causes its oppression  Abuse of language: its manipulation is an instrument of control dissolution of the seven commandments to decriminalize the pigs  Songs serve as propaganda the songs erode the sense of individuality  State rituals: songs, parades proliferate  Corruption of socialist ideals in the USSR: Orwell re-tells the history of the Soviet Union. And the pigs represent the new ruling class. Snowball represents Trotsky (idealist but less powerful), Napoleon is the usurper Stalin. Slowly the pigs adopt human traits. H’s the parable of the dissolution of the socialist ideals  Tendency towards class stratification. It’s natural and the difference between brain workers and labourers  Animal farm represents Russia and human society in general. In its internal structure: government (the pigs), police (the dogs) and society (the other animals)  The barn  collective memories of the nation, the 7 commandments are painted on its walls  The windmill  modernization projects of Russia, it represents all the pigs’ manipulation: it’s meant to earn money and to increase the pigs’ power.  Animal farm: power in itself corrupts manipulation of language 1984 (WRITTEN IN 1949)  A powerful warning against the dangers of totalitarianism  1984 is a dystopian novel that shows the worst human society imaginable to convince readers to avoid any path that might lead to totalitarianism  That society never materialized, as the fall of the Berlin wall and the disintegration of the URSS have witnessed. Yet, 1984 remains important for the analysis of the psychology of power and the possibility that manipulative language can become a mechanism of control.  Dystopian novel: Huxley’s Brave New World (1931) shows the conflict between the individual and the society. Huxley shared the same themes as Orwell: science, technology, politics that would reduce an individual’s freedom. But he simply anticipated them (World War II 6 years later, atomic bomb 16 years later). In 1937 he moved to California and started using hallucinogenic drugs and was interested in activities occupying the border between science and mysticism. He wrote “The doors of perception” that would influence Jim Morrison’s utopia: from the Greek “Good Place” or “No place” Plato’s republic is the first example, Thomas Moore’s Utopia (1516)  perfect society or to satirize existing societies. Huxley satirizes our society’s economic values. The characters do not want to know the truth about themselves and for that they use a drug, soma, and Shakespeare: John filters Lenina through Shakespeare’s lens and identifies her with Juliet PLOT Wiston is a member of the ruling party in Oceania. He’s constantly followed by the party through telescreens. Big Brother, the party leaders, controls everything, also language. The language is an invented one, Newspeak, where all the terms related with rebellion have been eliminates and thought crime is the worst of all crimes. Wiston dislikes the party because it prohibits thought, sex and individuality. In his private diary, Wiston writes his secret thoughts: he knows that the Brotherhood is plotting to overthrow the party under the leadership of Emanuel Goldstein. Wiston works in the ministry of truth, where history is altered. He receives a note from a dark-haired girl called Julia and starts a love affair. He thinks that their relationship is doomed, while Julia is more pragmatic and optimistic. The powerful members of the inner party, O’Brien, leads a luxury life and indoctrinates them against the party. Smith is arrested and taken to the ministry of love, where O’Brien turns out to be a member of the party. He starts brainwashing him and takes Smith to room 101 where he must face his worst fear such as rats. He pleases O’Brien to do it to Julia: his spirit is broken now: he meets Julia again but feels nothing. The Brave New World embryos in London: Alpha (the leaders), Betha, Gamma and Epsilon, less and less physically and intellectually impressive. Epsilons are meant for lab experiments and brainwashing. Mustapha wounds one of the ten world controllers, explains the boys how to remove emotions. John is a young man who has read the work by Shakespeare that his mother had given to him. He wants to reach the other places > the Brave New World that his mother has told him about. John is at odds with the de-humanizing society and he falls in love with Lemna. When a friend of theirs, Linda, dies, a riot led by John results and Mustapha Mond says that social stability and happiness (they have required the individual’s annihilation) are more important than the