Chapter 13 Early 20th-Century Novels

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Chapter 13Early 20th-Century Novels

• From An Outline of English Literature by Thornley
  and Roberts

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English Novels of the 20th Century

• Disappearance of the British Empire (p.144)
• The changes in beliefs and political ideas were
  influenced strongly by the events of the WWI.
• No longer held confidence in British society,
  culture and political organization.

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E. M. Foster

• Takes a completely different view of the values
  which formed and governed British society (p.144)
• Howards End (1910)
• 1. Show the different beliefs of two
• families the Wilcoxes (who are good at
• making money and are connected only with
• everyday things they can see and touch) and
• the Schlegel sisters (concerned with deeper,
• spiritual and cultural values)
• 2. Theme to connect the everyday outer
• life of the Wilcoxes with the inner life
• of the heart and spirit

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• A Passage to India (1924)
• How English governed India, the same sort of
  people as the Wilcoxes in Howards End, busy with
  traditional ways of behaving and the apperance of
  things and pepole, unable to see the inner truth
  of events.
• Theme bring together opposites
• Failures in terms of money and worldly importance
  may in fact be successful.

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D. H. Lawrence

• As a novelist, his job is to show how an
  individuals view of his own personality was
  often affected by conventions of language, family
  and religion (p.146)
• Relationship between people are changing and
  moving
• Took the form of the traditional novel and made
  it wider and deeper

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D. H. Lawrence

• Sons and Lovers (1913) p.147
• Taken from his early life
• Paul Morel and his relationship with his mother
• He needs her mother to help him make sense of the
  world around him, but in order to become an
  independent man/artist, he has to struggle to
  become free from her influence.
• Struggle to put the outer and inner world
  together in a true relation
• The Rainbow (1915) a family through three
  couples of different ages
• Women In Love (1916) two sisters trying to
  understand the true meaning of love and to work
  towards a real closeness of souls

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James Joyce

• Born and educated in Ireland (p.148)
• Dubliners (1914) -- a collection of short
  stories, The Dead
• A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916)
• presents Joyce himself as a young man in the
  character of Stephen Dedalus
• Shows how he gradually frees himself from the
  influence of two strong forces, political and
  religious feelings to follow his own nature and
  his own fate

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James Joyce

• Ulysses (1922) p.149
• Created a new style of writing, has no real plot
• Allows the readers to move inside the minds of
  the characters, and presents their thoughts and
  feelings in a continuous stream
• Breaking the usual rules of description, speech
  and punctuation
• Interior Monologue or Stream of Consciousness
• A powerful influence on the work of many other
  writers

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James Joyce

• Finnegans Wake (1939)
• Creates another new type of language
• Mixed up sentences and words
• Uses of references to ancient stories to express
  themes of (1) the nature of creation of the
  artist and of God (2) the humor and tragedy of
  human life

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Virginia Woolf

• Attempts to explore the
• consciousness of her characters (p.150)
• To the Lighthouse (1927)
• Mr. Ramsay represents the truth of facts that
  can be proved
• Mrs. Ramsay represents an attempt to find the
  truth that lies below the facts

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Virginia Woolf

• Orlando (1928) -- Presents a character who begins
  as a man in the 16th century and ends as a woman
  in 1928 (p.151)
• The Waves (1931) takes six characters at
  different points of their lives and show how each
  is affected by the death of a person
• Critical studies on literature and other subjects

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George Orwell

• Conscious of the ways in which language could be
  used to hide the truth (p.157)
• Governments can use language to deceive the
  people
• 1984 (1949)
• Describes a future world where every word and
  action is seen and controlled by the state
• Changing the language so the only words left are
  those for objects and ideas that the government
  wants the people to know about
• This picture of the future was influenced by the
  hardships and political events of the WWII

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George Orwell