Modernism

The modern age

Pag 360
When queen Victoria dies, the new age starts; but the rst decades saw the Great War.
It resulted in a great sense of disillusionment, since people, especially the young ones, realised
that the optimistic view of the victorians toward progress have led to destruction.
The progress didn’t improve the overall situation and the Great War made a di erence.
They started to question the code of conduct of the victorians, their objective idea of reality based
on fact.
These men were disillusioned with the past and the present as well.
They accused the past generation for the loss of so many young lives in the war.
After queen Victorian’s death, there’s the beginning of a more serene and light hearted
atmosphere.

New ideas were introduced, that broke with the past:

- Einstein’s theory of relativity: he states that there are no absolute laws in physics, there is no
such thing as objective reality, but relativity is the keyword. Motion is relative. Reality depends
on how one perceives it.
- Idea of time: there are 2 types of time, an objective one, announced by the hands of a clock,
and an internal one, a subjective time. The last one is a time in the mind where present, past
and future coexist.
- Freud’s psychoanalysis: the mind isn’t a single unit, but made up of several layers and there are
elements that belong to the conscious, whatever we are aware of, but there are also
experiences that belong to the subconscious, which is something that a ects the way we
behave and perceive reality, but of which we aren’t aware.
The victorian idea of absolute facts and objective reality has now disappeared.
In particular, thanks to Freud, it happened a shift from reality to the human mind and the way it
experiences reality.
- W.James’ stream of consciousness: he investigated the human mind and he stated that in it
there was a constant association of thought, memories, ideas and images. He called this the
ux/train of thoughts. The stream of consciousness is the association of ideas in the mind;
while, the technique used to write is called the interior monologue.

Like in art, modernism wanted to break with the past, also literature want to do this by focusing
on the psychological insight.
There are some typical characteristics of the modernist writers:
- There is little action. Plot is not relevant, the character’s thoughts are. It is relevant how a
character perceives reality and how the mind works.
- No omniscient narrator: everything is from the character’s point of view.
- The aim is to put into words the association of thoughts that happens in a character’s mind.
- Depending on what happens, there can be more or less formal control: if the narrator has more
power, there is some kind of formal control, based on organisation (grammar rules, etc); if the
narrator is less important, their imprint disappears: on the page there is just the thoughts of the
human mind, which have no formal structure.
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 James Joyce
He was Irish, born in Dublin, but he thought that the cultural life in the city wasn’t lively: he
thought that Dublin was a city linked to the past tradition and religion where an artist couldn’t
express properly. That’s why he moved to Paris.
He went to Dublin once more for a short time and then he moved to Trieste, where he met Svevo.
He didn’t have an easy life, he was quite poor since his novels weren’t very successful.
When WW1 began, he moved to Paris: the rst 2 decades of the century, Paris was the cultural
centre of Europe. When he felt it wasn’t safe anymore to live here, he moved to Switzerland and
went to Zurig.

He always set his novels in Dublin because it has always been in his heart.
There are 3 Joyces:
- Easy Joyce —> Dubliners and The portrait of an artist as a young man
- Di cult Joyce —> Ulysses
- Impossible Joyce —> Phynnegan’s wake (interior monologue: the narrator disappears and
there’s only the train of thought that is found on the page without any control, without
punctuation and division in paragraphs)

The portrait of an artist as a young man

Steven Daedalus is a young man who lives in Dublin, but he thinks that he can’t express as an
artist, so he moves to Paris.
There are explicit references to Joyce’s life.

Dubliners
It is not a proper modernist novel, it is the beginning of Joyce’s career.
The narrator still controls what there’s on the page: is just the rst step toward the interior
monologue.
The stream of consciousness is organised and there’s realism: the association of ideas in the
character’s mind is easy to follow.

The protagonists are all inhabitants of Dublin.

It is not a novel, but a collection of stories all set in Dublin, decided into four sections, which are
the 4 phases of human life:
- Childhood
- Adolescence
- Adulthood
- Public life
The protagonists are the same age as the section they belong to.

Joyce decides to write this collection to show that Dublin is the centre of paralysis: it is a place
whose inhabitants are rooted to their traditions, institutions, religion and history, in such a way
that no change is possible.
They are unable to break with the past, change their reality: there’s a sense of stagnation.
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All of the stories show this attitude of paralysation: symbolically they cant move a step forward in
their life. (I giocatori di carte/una domenica pomeriggio all’isola della grand jatte)

Most of the stories are made up of the protagonist’s thoughts.

Each story has at least one moment of epiphany (revelation): it’s a moment in which a character
suddenly becomes aware of some truths concerning themselves they were not aware of before.
Anything, even a trivial situation, can trigger the moment of epiphany. (Pirandello)

Eveline
We have no idea of what she looks like because it is not relevant: what matters is her
psychological description and insight.
What we know about her is her thoughts.
There are some realistic parts in the piece, such some informations given about her situation: her
mother died of illness, she lived with her father who at times seemed quite violent, she’s a shop
assistant and she doesn’t like her job, her family is quite poor.
In all stories the language Joyce uses conforms the age and the social class of the characters.

The narrator introduces the situation and describes what is going on: her w hatching out of the
window —> realism.
When the story starts she’s looking out of the window and what she sees reminds her of her past,
when she was a child: she tells the di erences between her current situation and what it used to
look like in the past where she used to play. These are Eveline’s thoughts.
It is always told in third person, but the reader gets that it is not the narrator to talk about him, but
he’s the one who refers her thoughts (line 14).

From the very rst paragraph the reader learns how present, past and future coexist in our minds.
From line 19 she’s looking around her window, where she sees a lot of dusty and old objects and
yellowing photographs: these are symbolic and reinforce the sense of stagnation, paralysis and
something that has been like that for ages.

Then she once more think about her plan to go away (line 28): what we learn comes from her
thoughts and we get the information that she won’t miss her job because she doesn’t like it and
her boss is quite rude.

While thinking of her possible future, she compares it at her current situation at home (Line 38):
her father is violent at times, he sometime sacks her for money, that she earns, because he drinks
too much, but she gives her too little money to buy food and do the shopping.

She seems to be changing her mind: what was totally negative so far, now sounds like not wholly
undesirable (line 56).
As the time of departure approaches, her vision, description and thoughts about her father gets
sweeter and sweeter.

Her future plans is going to Buenos Aires (translated in english is good air: it is positive,
symbolically it stands for a fresh start and a new life) with Frank, her ancée, who’s a sailor.
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 When thinking of herself in Buenos Aires (line 38) she says that there she would be married, she
would be treated with respect and not like her mother was treated.
Then she remembers the day she met Frank, the moments they spent together and the fact that
her father didn’t like him: after an argument, they started to meet secretly.

She has the chance to change her current situation: she’s the one in Dublin who has found the
way of paralysis. We don’t know if Dubliners cant or don’t want to nd a way out of it.

Her father is getting older and older and he may need her help and he would miss her (line 83):
she doesn’t sound as angry as before, but she starts to show a ection.
The memories about her father are sweet, like the day they had a picnic.
She continually shifts from past to future to present.

She’s getting ready to live, but she hears an organ playing from the street.
The music she hears is the same as when her mother died: she recollect her mother’s illness and
how she was talking nonsense.
But just before dying, Eveline made the promise to keep the house together, to look after her
father, her siblings and the house.

She’s still at home and realises this situation is sti ing (too oppressive): she must breathe new air
in Buenos Aires and start a new life, a better one.
Now she’s at the harbour and Frank is on the boat, urging her to get onto the ship: she’s about to
boat on the ship but she’s paralysed. She cannot go on board: she’s both physical and spiritual
paralysed, passive (line 125).
When she says “no, no, no” that’s epiphany: suddenly she realises she can’t leave.
There is not speci c reason for that, but we may infer that there are several reasons:
- The promise to her mother
- Her aging father
- The sense of duty towards him and his sibling

It’s a striking example of Dublin’s paralysing e ect on its inhabitants.

She cannot escape her prison of her father authority and her home.
There are other stories where the cultural background, made up of religion, institutions and family
ties, makes the protagonists slave of this city.

Gabriel’s epiphany
The nal page of Dubliners that belongs to the last story, which is called “the dead”: it is the
climax to the collection and its idea of paralysis. The title itself is meaningful.
The story is about a man called Gabriel, who’s a successful journalist: he has a good social
position and is very con dent.
A few days after Christmas, like every year, him and his wife Gretta go to Gabriel’s home outside
Dublin where they have a Christmas party: there are people, friends, music and food, that’s when
he usually gives a speech and they play songs on the piano.
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Then they are going back to the hotel, he realises there’s something wrong with Gretta and that
she changed her mood and she looks sad: he asks her whats wrong and she tells him something
she has never told him before and that it happened when she was young.

When they played the song it reminded her of a young boy, called Micheal Furey.
In the summer she used to go to a village in the countryside, staying at a relative of hers, and she
used to spent the all summer here.
Micheal lived closed to her relative’s house: they met and they used to spend the summers, year
after year, together.

But Micheal su ered from poor health and the day before leaving and going back to Dublin she
couldn’t say goodbye to him since he was sick at home.
At night it was raining heavily and it was very cold. She suddenly realises there was someone in
her garden: she opens the window and sees Micheal in the rain soaking wet because he didn’t
want her to leave without saying goodbye to her.

When she went back to Dublin, after a while she heard the news that Micheal had died. The title
of the part is I think he died for me: realising that he loved her is her epiphany, but we don’t know
if she has always been aware that Micheal was ready to risk his life for her or if she understand
that in the moment she heard the piano, however she never talked about that with Gabriel.

In their hotel room, while Gabriel is watching Gretta sleeping, his thoughts start to wonder from
past, present and future.
The narrator is describing the situation.
Gabriel’s epiphany: he’s proud of himself and con dent, but now he becomes aware that he has
played a poor part in his wife’s life. It is not that sense of communion that there should be a
husband and a wife because she has never told him about Micheal, but from her works she
realises she has kept Micheal in her heart so far. Although Micheal is dead, he’s still alive in
Gretta’s heart and he’s probably played a major role in her life than Gabriel and they have
probably had a more sense of communion than them as husband and wife.
Gabriel realises his wife’s face is no longer the face that Micheal Furey has known.

He starts comparing his life to Micheal’s: the conclusion is that it is better to live a shortly but fully,
so a meaningful life, than to fade and wither day by day, which is how he considers his life.
What he has just heard makes him think of the idea of death and that we will all become shades.
He just feels like one one aging day after day.
Gabriel’s epiphany: he’s so touched that he becomes aware of the meaninglessness of his life.
He’s no longer the con dent man he has always been: he’s a man whose life has little or no
meaning.
The feeling Micheal felt is something he has never felt but he knows that such feeling must be
love.

He can almost visualise the picture of Micheal standing under a crippling tree.
Little by little through an association of ideas is now thinking of the world of the dead.
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 He sees out of the window that he has started to snow again and he starts to think about the
weather forecast while watching the snow akes.
He imagines the whole Ireland covered in snow: he thinks of some areas and even the cemetery
where Micheal lays buried.
Snow falling all over Ireland makes the living and the dead alike and bonds them together: they
are no like one because those who live in Dublin are spiritually dead, so there is no di erence.
Ireland is like a giant cemetery. He feels he’s like the dead, he’s approaching the region of the
dead, since life for Dubliners is paralysis.
This is a second epiphany, because he becomes aware of his sense of mediocrity.

The language is highly musical and poetic.

The snow that covers everything is another symbolical image of immobility, paralysis and
impossibility to change.
In the end it is not the narrator talking, but it is all an association of ideas in Gabriel’s mind.

Ulysses
It is set in Dublin and it is one day in the life of an ordinary man, called Leopold Bloom, on an
ordinary day, the 16th of June (which is now celebrated in Ireland as Bloom’s day).
He is married to a woman called Molly and he lives an ordinary day: he gets up, takes breakfast,
goes to a funeral, goes to the hospital since a friend of his just had a baby, goes to a pub and
meets Steven Daedalus (an artist who went to Paris to become successful).
It is all written in direct interior monologue: no punctuation, grammar rules or paragraph; it is just
the ux of thoughts in the character’s mind without any control of the narrator (p.404).

It is called Ulysses because the structure of what the protagonist does on that day, his actions
and movements are the same as Omer’s Ulysses (Steven Daedalus is like Telemachus), but in an
ordinary life.

Leopold is an ordinary man, not a hero like Ulysses, for two possible reasons:
- There are no heroes nowadays, in modern times.
- It takes a hero to live in the modern world: if you can go on in the modern world you are a hero
( rst decades of the XX century see a deep cultural, economic and scienti c crisis).
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