Modern Age began proper from the start of the twentieth-century and it adopted the Victorian Age. In previous century the scientific innovations and theories introduced by Darwin, Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud held sway. They hit individual’s shattering beliefs badly. They progressed materially, however went astray. The young individuals through the first decade of the present century regarded the Victorian Age as hypocritical, and the Victorian beliefs as imply, superficial and silly. This rebellious temper affected modern literature which was directed by psychological attitudes, ethical beliefs and spiritual values diametrically against these of Victorians. The twentieth-century minds didn’t take something granted; they questioned every little thing, as they didn’t contemplate something as sure, fixed and ultimate. As H.G.Wells spoke of the stream of issues and of “all this world of ours being no more than the prelude to the real civilization”. Money, materials prosperity and consciousness of social life grew to become the priority of the age. So modern man grew to become extra of social being than religious. Moreover the destruction brought on by the 2 World Wars forged menacing shadows on ideas and it gave a final stroke to the disintegration of values and the era was named as the Lost Generation.
The one factor which stands out prominently within the history of English novel is its immense recognition within the modern period. It has eclipsed poetry and the drama and in addition competed efficiently with the radio and the cinema. Wars, morality, sex and many others, have been the identical themes in Shakespearean times however on this century they grew to become the true points. In the novels we discover discussion on colonialism, psychology, values, politics, religion, female issues, free sex and many others. It made the novel complicated in nature.
Use of Omniscient Narrator
In a novel written from the perspective of an omniscient narrator, the reader is aware of what every character does and thinks. The reader maintains this data as the plot strikes from place to place or period to period. An omniscient narrator can even present the reader with direct evaluation of action, character, and setting.
Read About: Postmodernism; What is the Postmodern Theory?
Use of First Person Narration
With the first-person perspective, one of many novel’s characters narrates the story. For instance, a sentence in a novel within the first person may read, “As I waited on the corner, I remembered the last time I had seen her.” The first person gives complete subjectivity and all of the immediacy, intimacy, and urgency of a single individual’s conflicts. It additionally exhibits a personality’s consciousness at telling a narrative. For instance, in Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, it’s Marlow who tells us the story; however Marlow himself needs to be checked out by us not solely by his experiences in Congo but in addition by the eyes of the first narrator who introduces Marlow to us.
Use of Two Narrators
Novels can’t do without a narrator’s voice and perspective. The story could also be frankly and unashamedly told within the writer’s voice as it’s in lots of Victorian novels. This voice could also be very quiet and unobtrusive. The writer could communicate very discreetly, directing our consideration to characters and actions however not overtly addressing us as readers, nor overtly talking of the characters as fictitious creations the writer could transfer exterior the characters and discuss life normally and we discover many examples of this enlarging of the fictional world of Fielding and George Eliot. The writer could communicate in an invented voice, utilizing masks as Chaucer and George Eliot did. The writer could choose to talk within the person of one of many characters. But in some late Victorian novels or in trendy novels, as an example in lots of novels by Joseph Conrad, the writer can converse straight within the voice of a subordinate character, a spectator of an action, like Marlow and Mr. Kurtz in Heart of Darkness. But each reader shouldn’t be an awesome scholar and deep examine is required for the understanding of which means and significance in a novel having two narrators, because two narrators complicate the novel.
Use of Symbolism
Many novels have two layers of meaning. The first is within the literal plot, the second in a symbolic layer wherein images and objects symbolize abstract concepts and emotions. Using symbols permits authors to specific themselves not directly on delicate or controversial issues.
English novelist Joseph Conrad felt that the novelist should seek for the “image,” meaning “the outward sign of inward feelings.” In Heart of Darkness he makes use of symbols extensively. The story is a couple of seaman, Marlow, who travels from England to Africa to work as a trader. While there he encounters one other European, Kurtz, who has withdrawn from society and resides in a distant space up the Congo River. The following passage from the book suggests the jungle’s decay. Symbolically, Marlow’s voyage into the wilderness represents his spiritual exploration of his personal soul:
“Going up the river was like traveling back to the earliest beginnings of the world, when vegetation rioted on the earth and the big trees were kings. … The air was warm, thick, heavy, sluggish … The long stretches of the waterway ran on, deserted, into the gloom of overshadowed distances. On silvery sandbanks, hippos and alligators sunned themselves side by side. … I turned to the wilderness really, not to Mr. Kurtz, who, I was ready to admit, was as good as buried. And for the moment it seemed to me as if I was buried in a vast grave full of unspeakable secrets. I felt an intolerable weight oppressing my breast, the smell of the damp earth, the unseen presence of victorious corruption, the darkness of an impenetrable night.”
Read About: Modernism and Post-Modernism Characteristics
Use of Flashback Technique
A flashback is a psychological phenomenon wherein someone remembers a previous experience. The term is normally used solely when the reminiscence is recalled involuntarily, or when it’s so intense that the person “relives” the experience, unable to totally acknowledge it as being a reminiscence. For instance, in A Passage To India by E.M.Forster, we witness the identical approach utilized by the author for trial scene. Dr. Aziz was charged by Miss Adela Quested that Aziz had assaulted her at one of many Marabar Caves, throughout their picnic and now she was to document her assertion. In the courtroom she was questioned, whether or not she was adopted by the prisoner and she was confused as she was recalling in her thoughts the earlier incidents to know, what really occurred within the Caves. Forster states:
Her imaginative and prescient was of a number of caves. She noticed herself in a single, and she was additionally outside it, awtching its entrance, for Aziz to move in. She didn’t find him. It was the doubt that had typically visited her, however strong and enticing, just like the hills. “I am not—” Speech was more difficult than vision. ‘I am not quite sure’. In this manner we’re told concerning the inside working of the character
Use of Epiphany
An epiphany is a sudden spiritual revelation or manifestation which the character experiences normally at a second of disaster. It is as if a veil is lifted and one is able to see the important quality or unity of some concept, event, or person. Such a spiritual breakthrough could possibly be triggered by one thing as insignificant as a sound or a gesture.
Use of Impressionism
The time period very most likely derives from Claude Monet’s painting Impression: Soliel Levant. It has been used to explain he novelist’s strategy of concentrating on the inside lifetime of the principle character somewhat than on outer actuality. Abundant examples on this method are to be discovered within the work of James Joyce, Dorothy Richardson and Virginia Woolf.
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