V4- Literature lesson 3: Modernism

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• vwo
• Leerjaar 4

Literature lesson 3: Modernism 

A reaction to Realism

Roughly between 1860-1900 most literary works belonged to REALISM. 

Famous authors of this literary

movement include: Charles Dickens &

Leo Tolstoy. 

Do you know what is meant by Realism in 

literature?

What was Realism in
literature?

Realism was:

• About real people, common people, living their ordinary and often harsh lives.
• Show how ordinary lives are just as meaningful as those of the upper classes.
• Intend on showing the ‘big picture’ of society and comment on its shortcomings.
• The genre was popular with everyone. No poetic, romantic language is used in realism. It had straightforward language that could be read and understood by all. 
• Focus on contemporary issues without any romanticism, showing readers the harsh realities of life instead of escaping them.
• The most unique feature of realism is that everything, right from characters, plot and language is free of ornamentation. It is explained as it is, without any decorative language. So the foundation of realism is the conviction that the world can be described in an objective manner.
• You can think of realist narration as a transparent window through which the reader looks at the narrated world
  

We do not actually get to look inside the heads of the characters or form an opinion about them based on their innermost thoughts or desires, as we often do with characters today. This is where Modernism comes in.

Modernism

A lot of Modernist art, ranging from literature to paiting and film, was made as a response to WW I and created between the two World Wars, in what we now know as the Interbellum or Interwar Period.

Apart from the world recovering from a global war, a lot actually happened during this period.

Interbellum (1918-1939)

• End of WW I & Spanish Flu pandemic
• Women steadily get the right to vote across the globe
• Roaring Twenties: parties, jazz, Hollywood on the rise, seemingly endless economic growth
• Wall Street Crash of 1929 & the Great Depression
• Spanish Civil War & Francisco Franco
• Rise of fascism in Europe with Hitler & Mussolini
• Start of WW II

Modernism

• Breaking the rules of traditional writing and experiment with literary form and expression
• Exploring the human mind as psychology became a scientific field.
• Writers were so rebellious because they lived in an age of unseen technological upheaval
• Modernists were also horrified by the wartime terrors 
• Rejection of modernity and all its consequences 
• Individual opinions towards modernity vary from author to author 
• Modern works contain a struggle for meaning or an outright refusal of consistent meaning.

This movement was a direct reaction to Realism and its objective approach to storytelling. The modernist authors weren’t objective at all, focusing instead on subjective modes of narration. 

The most notable ones are the Unreliable Narrator & The Stream of Consciousness

The Unreliable Narrator

• Authors sometimes use an Unreliable Narrator to tell the story, a protagonist who can't be trusted to tell the events accurately.
• This type of narrator might be insane, evil, delusional, forgetful, or just plain wrong...
• The writer uses this technique to 'hook' the reader.
• Mostly written from a first-person point of view.
• Examples are Gone Girl, Fight Club, The Girl on the Train,
  Life of Pi, Atonement, The Curious Incident of the Dog
   in the Night-time. 

1. Can you name an unreliable narrator?
2. What stood out to you about this character?

Stream of Consciousness

A narrative technique that gives the impression of a mind at work, jumping from one observation, sensation, or reflection to the next seamlessly…

It can be written in the first as well as in the third person.

Include sensory impressions, association, repetition, incomplete ideas, incomplete sentences, and rough grammar to recreate the way the human mind works.

Everyone has an internal monologue.

The two most notable writers who used this technique are:

• James Joyce - Ulysses
• Virginia Woolf - Mrs Dalloway

Read their background information in the Reader!

S.of C in Mrs Dalloway:

She had a perpetual sense, as she watched the taxi cabs, of being out, out, far out to sea and alone; she always had the feeling that it was very, very dangerous to live even one day. Not that she thought herself clever, or much out of the ordinary. How she had got through life on the few twigs of knowledge Fraulein Daniels gave them she could not think. She knew nothing; no language, no history; she scarcely read a book now, except memoirs in bed; and yet to her it was absolutely absorbing; all this; the cabs passing; and she would not say of Peter, she would not say of herself, I am this, I am that.

What strikes about about this passage? Do you recognize anything about how Mrs Dalloway's mind works here?

1. What strikes about about this passage?
2. Do you recognize anything about how Mrs Dalloway's mind works here?

Assignment

Now that you know about the unreliable narrator and the stream of consciousness, do one of the following for next literature lesson:

1. You are an unreliable narrator and are telling us a story from your point of view. You can be anyone from a wallflower to a devious murderer. Now, your story must consist of at least 5 paragraphs of no less than 5 sentences. Make sure we are as readers become aware of your dishonesty.
2. Take 5 minutes, a pen and paper, and write down anything that crosses your mind. Here are the rules: write as fast as you can. Don’t stop writing. No erasing (that’s stopping), no talking or doing anything else (that’s stopping too). Cross out worlds words if they are wrong and you catch them right away. Leave a ------ if you can’t remember a word. Don’t worry about grammar of spelling. Don’t know what to write? Say so!

Hand in your work via Magister - Opdrachten. You're work will not be shared in class unless you have given permission to do so. Please note down if you don't want your work shared with the class.