Modernism

The Changing Shape of the Novel

With the advent of Modernism, in the 20^th century novel the author tried to become invisible (as objective as possible).

The novel is no longer a public instrument because of the disintegration of the background of public belief, now the novelist selects critical events from the behavior of his characters. This is caused by the modern belief that in order to create a relationship you have to acknowledge who you are as an individual first.

The modern novelist faces 2 major problems:

1. A moral problem = selecting what is significant in experience and showing why
2. A psychological problem = relating the nature of consciousness to time

Theories used to solve these problems:

1. Bergson’s = inner time flows differently from clock time, in fact consciousness is a continuous blend of retrospect and anticipation where memory is an integral part of personality, rather than just a device. Hence, the past influences both the present and the future.
2. William James’ = He invented the term “stream of consciousness”, which indicates the patterns created by consciousness as it moves. There are two level of consciousness, the speech level, communicated orally or in writing, and the pre-speech level, which has no communicative basis and it is not rationally controlled or logically ordered. The technique to express the stream is the Interior Monologue.

This was Modernism! 😉

We hope you have found this article useful.
If you have any questions or comments write them under here!