The Principle Objective of Modernist Writing - Case Study Example

Modernist Literature Modernist literature includes a broad genre of literature that dominated most part of the late nineteenth century and the earlytwentieth century. Modernism cannot be confined in any specific parameters since it encompasses many variations of artistic and philosophical perspectives including “symbolism, futurism, surrealism, expressionism, imagism, vorticism, dada, and others” (“Modernism”). This genre of literature becomes even more confusing to define when many modernist writers do not associate with these groups. In spite of this, modernist literature has some basic characteristics which make it identifiable from other genres. Modernist writers essentially reject the conventional and traditional views, philosophies and truths of the nineteenth century. More specifically, modernist literature is an attempt to break the norms of the Victorian era. The principle objective of modernist writing is to break free from “19th century literary and artistic principles” (“Modernism”). The idea was to create a genre of literature that is separate from traditional literature. According to many modernist writers, every story that can be narrated has been already told in one way or the other. Therefore, to bring up something new the writers adopted entirely new forms of writing. As a result of this, the dawn of twentieth century witness a cascade of writers with new styles of writing, i.e. contemporary of their age, by breaking the traditional forms of story telling. Some of the popular writers/poets who used experiments in their writings are James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, T.S. Elliot and so on (“Modernism”). Although it is not easy to pinpoint a specific year or period as starting point of modernist writing, it is nevertheless considered that the beginning of twentieth century saw a profound change in English literature and philosophy. This period saw both symbolic and literal severance from the traditional artistry of the preceding century. First, the fall of Queen Victoria’s reign was a symbolic break from nineteenth century conventions. Second, publications of many unprecedented theories like Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams and Einstein’s theory of special relativity were literal way of relegating conventional thoughts and ideas (“Modernism”). ‘Calypso’ of Ulysses In modernist writing, the expression of time coincides with narration of the story making both plot and time as identical elements. In modernist writings, the concept of time from the perspective of the reader and from the perspective of the character is different. On the other hand, perspective of time by the narrator and by the character is similar. For instance, James Joyce introduced his character Leopold Bloom in the fourth chapter of Ulysses, ‘Calypso’. Bloom’s introduction was followed by the statement “Mr Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls” (Joyce). The next statement proved that it was only a part of Bloom’s dream since he was not actually eating but was working in the kitchen, “Kidneys were in his mind as he moved about the kitchen softly, righting her breakfast things in the humpy tray” (Joyce). In the remaining part of ‘Calypso’ no other statements were used. For the purpose of indicating that the narrated events have occurred as past, the author has used only simple past and past continuous tenses. This created a fusion between the passage of time depicted in the narration and the passage of time of the plot. This makes “narratorial description impossible; plot duration, elapsing concurrently with narrative duration, cannot stop” (Shail, 122). Herein lies the difference between a modernist literature and a realist literature. In the latter form, the focus remains on the conscious state of mind of the concerned character in the plot. The modernist writers like Joyce and Woolf made a radical departure from the style of realist novelists. Their rule was to avoid repetition of plot duration. The writing method that was introduced by the modernist writers was not of any distinct style, it is just that these writers refrained from using past conventional literary styles to explain cause and effect (Shail, 122). In Joyce’s writing, women characters are depicted in an ambiguous manner. For some critics, Joyce seemed to be a writer who inherently despised women. For these critics, Joyce introduced women characters as their socially identifiable forms like “Mother, Virgin and Whore” (Parsons, 96) – all of which reduced the characters as mere physical objects. For other critics, Joyce depicted women as revolutionaries and used language that made the women characters destabilize the patriarchal society (Parsons, 96). Joyce has written about the character Molly Bloom who is the wife of the protagonist Leopold Bloom. While narrating the character of Molly, the author was recreating and at the same time exposing and ridiculing the conventional cultural perspectives of womanhood and the thought processes of the female gender. Molly Bloom’s character has been depicted by her monologues. With her monologues, the author exposed the characteristics of Molly . Her monologues were filled with ignorance, cunningness, conflicting views, vanity and petty issues. According to Joyce, these were the conventional perspectives of the society about women. On the other hand, “her narrative unreliability and disregard for logical thinking could also be seen to represent an alternative to the formal structures of patriarchal thought that produces such stereotypes” (Parsons, 98). Joyce used to believe that women carried secret in their heart which is almost difficult to fathom by any person. His inquisitiveness was reflected in his characterization of women especially Molly Bloom in Ulysses. Joyce had an inherent revulsion towards psychoanalysis; yet many times he analyzed his wife’s dreams and wrote down his interpretations of those dreams. He has used a similar method of writing in the ‘Calypso’ section of Ulysses. Here, Leopold Bloom had imagination that he would write a story based on bits and pieces of his wife, Molly’s speech, “Might manage a sketch. By Mr and Mrs L. M. Bloom. Invent a story for some proverb. Which? Time I used to jotting down on my cuff what she said dressing” (Joyce). Joyce’s depiction of women characters like Molly Bloom’s speech is evidence of his curiosity regarding the inner dreams and desires of a woman. Molly is one of the most profound female characters of modernist literature. Although Molly’s thoughts were dominated by mundane details, this character represents a typical woman of the society. Her character formation reflected the perception of the feminine gender by the male. This also indicated that Joyce acknowledged the same concept of the female so as to adopt the style in his narration of female characters in his modernist novels (Parsons, 100). The character Molly Bloom was written by Joyce as inspiration from Calypso who was a nymph in the Greek mythology. She fell in love with Odysseus and kept him captive in her island for seven years. Only after receiving order from Zeus did she let him go free. Inspired by Calypso, Joyce depicted Molly Bloom more as a seductress than as a wife who duly perform her duties towards her husband. Like Calypso who captivated Odysseus thus giving him no option to leave the island and return home, Molly also did not give any choice to her husband, Leopold to leave his home. Both the characters proved the fact that women have the power to exert control over men even if they use it openly or not. Molly did not need to expose her seductive nature since her husband was already enamored by her physical features. She could sexually lure him even while making simple gestures like calling a cat (Korejwo). ‘Burial of the Dead’ of The Waste Land It was Virginia Woolf who had stated that human nature went through a profound change “on or about December 1910” (“A Brief Guide to Modernism”). This statement reflected the sentiments of all the writers, poets and artists of that era for whom past traditions of writing style was outmoded and the conventional way of using words was not suitable for the era that was witnessing great technological changes and global chaos. It was during the second decade of the twentieth century that Einstein’s theories were changing human beings’ perspective of the universe, and creative energy was pushing the artists towards new kinds of endeavours. The joy of demand and creating changes reached its peak point in 1914, the year of onset of the WWI. This war like a curse on civilization managed to destroy a huge chunk of young generation of Europeans, pushed Russia into disastrous revolutions and paved the way for even worse infernos in the subsequent decades. In the aftermath of the war, European rule over the world came to an end and with it started the American era. For numerous artists, writers and poets in Europe, this was an era of deep rooted disillusionment. They began to believe that the traditional values on which human civilization was standing was baseless. So, began the desire to initiate change in art and literature. Among the pioneer of changes were many American poets, one of whom was T.S. Eliot who was born in the late nineteenth century. It was this famous American modernist poet, Eliot who wrote one of the most popular poems of his era, The Waste Land in which he used “revolutionary techniques of composition, such as the collage” (“A Brief Guide to Modernism”). In many ways, the poem was regarded as “the anthem of the postwar generation” (Gillies & Mahood, 100). Eliot’s growth as a modernist poet was enhanced by his long line of worries caused by his family problems. It was in 1915 that he married Vivien and then settled in London since his wife refused to travel to America during the wartime. With this began his English life. His sudden marriage was a shock for his parents more because Vivian was previously an emotional patient with various physical problems. Moreover, Eliot’s father’s death in early 1919 infused within him a sense of guilt for not being able to mend the bitterness that had developed in his relation with his father. During the same time, Vivien’s physical health deteriorated which caused both financial and physical strain on the poet. As a result of this, he suffered from nervous breakdown and went on a three month break as advised by his physician. It was during this break that he completely his previously half written poem, The Waste Land. It was a compilation of dramatic incidents that occurred in his modern English life in London. This long poem’s “extraordinary intensity stems from a sudden fusing of diverse materials into a rhythmic whole of great skill and daring” (Bush). Eliot’s The Waste Land is not only one of the most important poems of the modernist era, but it also defines the concept of modernist poetry. Apparently, this poem seemed to be a product of “a new era of high aesthetic self-consciousness and non-representationalism, in which art turns into realism and humanistic representation towards style, technique and spatial form in pursuit of a deeper penetration of life” (Beasley, 79). However, this famous poem is not an example of a writing that abides by the modernist framework that was already in vogue during the early decades of the twentieth century. The poem by its essence gave birth to new modernist frameworks for literature. With this poem, Eliot successfully created a new template which was relevant with his analysis of the history of civilization. In the first section of the poem, “The Burial of the Dead”, a Bavarian countess recalled her childhood days in Austria before the WWI had started. It was more of a dramatic monologue as even though the character was in intense desire to speak, she did not get any audience as she was surrounded by dead people caused by war. The poem begins with some of the most memorable lines of modern poetry, “April is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain” – (Eliot) The essence of modernism lies in the agonized feeling of writers emerging from the sense that expressing something that has never been expressed before is inherently difficult to the point of being impossible. This gloomy feeling came at a time when global perspective was changing through the European and American society. In the pre-modernist world, there was order and stability with clear meanings of faith, social values and identity. On the other hand, chaotic instability marked the era of modernism with social values realized as root of lack of faith and lost sense of identity (“Modernism”). References “A Brief Guide to Modernism”, poets, 2004, August 3, 2014 from: http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/brief-guide-modernism Beasley, Rebecca. Theorists of Modernist Poetry, NY: Routledge, 2007 Bush, Ronald. “T.S. Eliot’s Life and Career”, Uni. of Illinois, 1999, August 3, 2014 from: http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/a_f/eliot/life.htm Eliot, T.S. The Waste Land and other poems, NY: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014 Gillies, Mary Ann & Mahood, Aurelea. Modernist Literature: An Introduction, Edinburgh Univ. Press, 2007 Joyce, James. Ulysses, online-ebooks.info, 1937 Korejwo, Joy. “James Joyce’s Ulysses”, Stockton College, n.d., August 3, 2014 from: http://loki.stockton.edu/~kinsellt/projects/ulysses/storyReader$6.html “Modernism”, Univ. of Neveda, n.d., August 3, 2014 from: https://faculty.unlv.edu/kirschen/handouts/modernism.html Parsons, Deborah. Theorists of the Modernist Novel, NY: Routledge, 2007 Shail, Andrew. The Cinema and the Origins of Literary Modernism, NY: Routledge, 2012 Read More