20th Century British Literature on Modernism

TTable of contents
1. Introduction
2. Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse
3. Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
4. Conclusion
5. References

Introduction
In contrast to the earlier writers of the twentieth century, who glorified and admired the development of the civilization, its achievements and growing urbanization and who saw the coming future of the “golden age” in technological and social progress, modernist writers had the opposite attitude towards the modern life of society as the years of two world wars, years of social and economical crisis and growing social unrest proved only that society was lost and was experiencing stagnation. Moral and ethical degradation of the upper classes first and of the most part of the society a bit later was the main theme of the contemporary art of that time. Economical crisis, social problems and disappointment in reality caused by the outcomes of the two wars and existing social injustice influenced the consciousness of people and influenced their inner world. The time of social frustration, alcoholism and cocaine addiction on the hand with depression in the minds of many people, received reflection in the contemporary art and literature. In order to understand the situation in the society of the half of the twentieth century one doesn’t have to read contemporary literature as it’s enough to refer to the paintings of Picasso and Dali in order to see the decline of morals and disillusionment. Different modernist writers proposed various way to reform society; if Woolf simply criticized reserved world of Englishmen in 1920’s mentioning the importance of seeking unity and harmony with each other, then James Joyce, inspired by Irish nationalist movement, was more optimistic in his writings showing his heroes in progress, developing in to the personalities and individuals who changed their lives and are ready to change the society.

Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse

Virginia Woolf’s novel To the Lighthouse exhibits the fragmentation of human consciousness and perception and shows unrealized desire to seek unity and harmony in relations between people, as it is impossible to achieve it in harsh realities. The uniqueness and individuality of every character makes the main problem that is described in the novel; for the author it’s the isolation and alienation of the characters from one another and their desire destroy this gap. In order to feel personal emptiness and loneliness, Woolf suggests not a compromise of all perspectives, but the dissolution of all perspective only. Woolf sees the main social evil in the relations of people in inability to understand their inner world. Woolf tells that without a harmony with oneself, the person can not build healthy relations with his encirclement as he is alienated from others by the burden of his personal problems.
The novel To a lighthouse is about the Ramsay family who live in a house on the coast of the sea. But as we read the novel we observe that family members as well as guests only coexist together and their coexistence can not be even called mutual understanding or some sort of traditional family and friend relations.
Mrs. Ramsay often complains on “strife, divisions, difference of opinion, prejudices twisted into the very fiber of being.” Lily Briscoe feels the “knowledge and wisdom” in Mrs. Ramsay. But at the same time she lacks confidence as she doesn’t know how to “know one thing or another thing about people, sealed as they were?” And the novel of Virginia Woolf is simply about taking all those people out of their rooms which can be perceived as cells or “small worlds” and breaking their limited egocentric outlook in order to create social harmony and healthy atmosphere in relations with each other.
The example of Lily Briscoe’s relationship with her paintings illustrates isolationism and personal gap in the relations between people in the story. Lily paints the world in front of her standing just in front of her house and her paintings only reflect the environment she lives in. Her paintings show more than usual images as they reflect the inner world and emotional life of her close people. Nevertheless Lily is not free as she is afraid of anyone penetrating in the world of her art, as such penetration could “destroy her inner wold”. The reason of such phobia according to Woolf lies in the perception of reality by Lily as we observe through the text that painting provides an alternative reality for Lily, illusion where she escapes from reality and finds shelter from everyday problems.
The image of the lighthouse is very symbolic as it shows the isolation of people, their limited outlook and lack of desire for creating closer relationships. It shows the selfishness and stubborn character through their reluctance to make the first step towards mutual understanding and happiness. But the lighthouse has to break up when Ramsay family reach it at the end of the novel; and to Lily who is standing on the lawn it seems to be “almost invisible, …melted away into a blue haze.”
Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Unlike unwilling and stationary characters of Virginia Woolf’s To the lighthouse the hero of James Joyce’s novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is more active and is developing. Like the characters of the lighthouse the main character of Joyce’s novel Stephen is experiencing personal emptiness and alienation as the reality contradicts to his upbringing and high moral principle of his education in traditions of Catholic Irishmen. He feels shame of the “sin” as he had sexual experience with a young prostitute in Dublin, besides he feels additional guilt on himself and tries to escape realities studying hard in catholic school and even prepares for priesthood later. He turns from a family boy into a handsome educated young man who is not able to find place in the bourgeois contradictory world. Financial problems of his family make him to change the place of studying and living not once and as a result he gets multisided life experience. The situation on the shore of the se changed his life principles as he watched a dancing young girl ands was charmed by her beauty. He understands that it’s impossible to reject human beauty and natural feelings of sexual desire and love. Doing this he was resisting his nature and only was causing moral harm to himself. Later in the university he meets a man named Cranly who becomes his friend and helps him to formulate his own theory about love, live and art. As we can see the hero of Joyce overcomes alienation and finds social harmony in relations with others as he is able to risk, he is able to try new things and new experiences and is courage enough to a make the first step towards others fighting his fears and submitting his “shameful nature”. One of the major reasons for such description of the man in Joyce’s novel was the national Irish renaissance at the beginning of the twentieth century and the personal desire of Irishmen to change at least their personal lives for better. The spirit of nationalism and elements of national idea are obvious in this writing of Joyce, as he also proposes changes in Irish catholic traditions, etc. Unlike the heroes of Woolf’s writing Stephen is experiencing different sort of alienation and has different fears as his personal conflict is based on puritan upbring tradition with freedom loving nature of the personality. It wasn’t created artificially and he is more open to the environment that the heroes of Woolf’s novel he is just stuck in the way to express his individualism to others.

Conclusion

Other works of the modernist writers also use the method of personal analysis, description of the inner world and fragmentation of thoughts to show the reader the urgent social problems from different angles and describe their universal meaning and value. As the works that were discussed show the moral problems of individualism and social alienation among different classes we can make a conclusion that there was crisis in different spheres of life. Bourgeois mercantile values caused the crisis of family values, crisis of traditional virtues and principles as many of them seemed to be inappropriate in the society full of vices and absurd. Many couldn’t see the way out and considered personal asceticism to be the only solution: like paintings of Lily or the desire of Stephen to become a priest. In reality the solution was much easier and didn’t require personal sacrifice. It was enough to turn to each other and make a step towards closer people.

References:

1. Woolf,V. To the Lighthouse Harvest Books 1989
2. Joyce, J. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man Penguin Classics 1993