James Joyce and Virginia Woolf: Radical Innovators in Modern Literature, Tesine di Maturità di Inglese

Scarica James Joyce and Virginia Woolf: Radical Innovators in Modern Literature e più Tesine di Maturità in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! JAMES JOYCE James Joyce born in Dublin and grew up in a Catholic family. He received an excellent education and he went to university, where he graduated in modern languages, studying French, Italian and Norwegian. He moved to Paris because he was intolerant of the Catholic religion and the provincial life of Dublin. In 1904 he met Nora Barnacle and they went to Paris, Zurich and Trieste. When he went to Italy, he became friendly with Italian writer Italo Svevo, who was influenced by James Joyce. In 1905, he completed his short story collection called Dubliners. At the outbreak of the First World War, Joyce went with his family to Zurich when he began to write Ulysses. In 1923 he started his second major work called Finnegans Wake and, suffering from a serious eye disease, he continued writing. Joyce returned to Zùrich where he died in 1941. James Joyce is probably one ofthe most radical innovators ofthe mother novel. DUBLINERS Dubliners is a collection of 15 stories in which Joyce portrays the lives of different people living in Dublin. Joyce used an external narrator but the stories are told from the point of view of the main character. AIl the events take place in Dublin. The spirit of the city acts as a link between all the characters and the unity of experiences is underlined by the fact that a character from one story may happen to mention a character from another story. The 15 stories which make up Dubliners, follow the four phases of human life, from childhood through to adolescence, maturity and public life. The protagonists came from all walks of life - so maids, music teachers, clerks, students. Joyce focuses on specific moments in their lives that seem to belong to the mundane but they become special to the characters as they correspond to important moments of self awareness. The last story in the collection is “The Dead” in this short story choice displays deep psychological insight and ability focuseson human emotion and relationships. THEMES IN DUBLINERS The two main themes of Dubliners are paralysis and epiphany. Paralysis can be described as a condition which is characteristic to modern man; the frustrating and stifling circumstances of an unfulfilling job, the happiness and loneliness caused by unsuccessful marriage or lack or friendship. The protagonists have some desire they would like to fulfil, they attempt to do so but are forced to give up because of their circumstances - which are family, culture, religion. The second theme, epiphany, describes a sudden revelation of an emblematic truth or reality. It results in the characters having a more profound understanding of themselves and the situation in which they live, in the end, they don’t act upon this realisation but passively continue with their lives as before. THE DEAD The two protagonists of “The Dead” are Gabriel Conroy and his wife Gretta. They are guests at a party organised by his two old aunts for the feast of the Epiphany. Joyce portrays the society of the time, with its class divisions and religious convictions, once again in a grip of a suffocating atmosphere which dominates every story. After the party Gabriele and his wife Greta go to their hotel. He talks to her but she seems distracted and starts crying. He asks her why she is so sad and she answers that it is because of the song she heard at the party, which triggered a moment of “epiphany” for her. This song reminded her of a former love, a boy she knew many years ago. His name was Michael Furey and “he died for her”. Gabriele asks her what she means by this and she tells him the story of Furey's love for her. At the end of the story Gabriel looks out of the window and he too has an “epiphany” when he realises how his love for Greta has been shallow compared to Michael Furey's. THEMES AND SYMBOLS The title has two meaning: 1. it refers to all dubliners who are paralysed, so to all people who are spiritually “dead”; 2. it refers to Michael Furey who died for Gretta. In this story, the reader can identify a specific moment of “epiphany”, the moment in which something life-changing is revealed to the main character.The final image of the falling snow can be seen as both a symbol of death and also as a kind of universal cleansing which brings a new consciousness. ULYSSES Ulysses is a milestone in modern literature. The three characters are: Stephen Dedalus, Leopold and Molly Bloom. The title Ulysses refers to Homer's Odyssey and there are many parallels between the two works. The 18 episodes corrisponde to the adventures that make up the Odyssey. The story takes place in Dublin in one day, on 6th of June 1904. Joyce decides to put the story in one day because he wants to contrast his works with Victorian novels. The modernists, in fact, had a subjective conception of the time. While the Victorians had an objective conception of time, there was a chronological and logical conception of the events. He uses different techniques: the interior monologue and a stream of consciousness. He wants his has never met him, is very impressed by this news and feels a strong connection with him. MAIN CHARACTERS Clarissa Dalloway is a woman of the upper middle class, her husband is a member of the Conservative Party parliament who has narrow views on women's rights and politics. Clarissa is a complex and frustrated woman, who lives marriage as a limit to her freedom, but cannot really express her need for independence. She always remembers her past, especially her love for Peter Walsh, whom Richard Dalloway preferred because he was richer. Parallel to the story of Clarissa, we follow the story of Septimus veteran of World War I, suffering from mental disorders and patient of Dr Bradshaw. Clarissa and Septimus do not know each other personally. Septimus represents Clarissa's hidden fears and her inability to face life, the difference between them is that Clarissa is always aware of the world around her even when she lets herself go to her thoughts, while Septimus cannot differentiate between his inner and outer world. Through the suicide of Septimus, Clarissa understands that death is part of life, accepts it and she decides to go on. NARRATIVE TECHNIQUE Mrs Dalloway is the novel in which Virginia Woolf leaves the structure of the traditional novel, that is the chronological narrative of events to use the technique of the flow of consciousness and the interior monologue. We follow the life of Clarissa and the other characters over a day in London and their inner monologue blends with the sounds and noises of the city. Virginia Woolf clearly describes the contrast between psychological and chronological time, as Clarissa walks the streets of London on her way to the flower shop, we also follow the path of his mind and his thinking that go back and forth in time in a very short interval (subjective time); atthe same time Clarissa perceives the outside world, for example the noises of cars and in particular the bells of Big Ben, who interrupt his thoughts. Big Ben is the symbol of passing time (chronological time) and is felt by allthe characters in the novel creating a connection between them. STRUCTURE In Mrs Dalloway, all the action, apart from the flashbacks, takes place on a day of "mid-June". It is an example of the narrative of the stream of consciousness: each scene closely follows the thoughts of a particular character. Woolf alternates his way of narrating between omniscient description, indirect inner monologue and soliloquy. The narrative follows twenty characters in this way, but most of the novel is spent with Clarissa and Septimus. The novel has two main narrative lines involving Clarissa and Septimus. Within each narrative there is a particular time and place in the past to which the main characters continue to return in their minds. For Clarissa, the "continuous present" of her youth continues to interfere in her thoughts. For Septimus, the "continuous present" of his time as a soldier during the "Great War" continues to intrude.