英国文学期末考察作业

1、The Brief Analysis on the Major Themes and Styles of the British Modernism NovelsThrough a term of study, I have a basic understanding on the British modernism literature. In the following I will briefly analyze the the major themes and styles of the British modernism literature .through some repres

2、entative writings by those like, Joseph Conrad, E. M. Forster, James Joyce, D. H. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot and William Golding. through analysis we know the mordenism literature mainly talk about human nature, civilization and savagery , feminism ,sexuality ,social illness. And the main

3、 styles are symbolism, allusion, satire, detached island, stream of consciousness.n Lets come to the theme . First the the good and evil of human nature. In the Lord of Flies William Golding creates anti-utopian novels, believe that human nature is evil. He wrote “It was simply what seemed sensible

4、for me to write after the war when everyone was thanking God they werent Nazis. Id seen enough to realize that every single one of us could be Nazis.” He attempts to trace the defects of society back to the defects of human nature. For most of his narrative, he seems to be concerned with moral aimle

5、ssness: the stranded boys in the Lord of the Flies almost entirely shake off their civilized behavior. Under certain conditions of survival, the primitive element predominates; residual savagery lies barely below the surface and is controlled only under the right circumstances. Remove these circumst

6、ances and the boys are amoral, vicious, chaotic, murderous. William Golding explores what man, or pre-man, is really like when his faade of civilized behavior falls away. That is , what the true human being are like when removed the veil of human being, put off the dress of human being, the dress is

7、 the civilization imposed on us. In the end of the novel, Ralph cried loudly, Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of mans heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy. next feminism. As we know that Virginia Woolf is feminist. She was very much concerned wi

8、th the rights and position of women, especially of intelligent women and women writers. She actively took part in the struggle for womans rights of suffrage & rights to work which is shown in her Three Guineas. She wrote several essays on the subject, notably in A Room of Ones Own. In the A Room of

9、Ones Own Woolf imagines that Shakespeare had a sister: a sister equal to Shakespeare in talent, equal in genius, but whose legacy is radically different. This imaginary woman never writes a word and dies by her own hand, her genius unexpressed. But if only she had found the means to create, urges Wo

10、olf, she would have reached the same heights as her immortal sibling. -from A. in the end of the novel she proposed that A woman must have a fixed income and a room of her own in order to have the freedom to create.n Next social illness. D. H. Lawrences novels and poetry explore the social

11、ills created by the Industrial Revolution and the role of sexuality in human relationships. He thinks the industrialized culture is too intellectual and dehumanized; His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanizing effects of modernity and industrialization. James Joyces ea

12、rly volume of short stories, Dubliners, is a penetrating analysis of the stagnation and paralysis of Dublin society. “My intention was to write a chapter of the moral history of my country and I chose Dublin for the scene because that city seemed to me the center of paralysis.” “I always write about

13、 Dublin, because if I can get to the heart of Dublin, I can get to the heart of all the cities of the world. In the particular is contained the universal.” Next sexuality. Thus the dialectic between man and woman is a chief theme in Lawrences work. He also believes passionately in mans natural insti

14、ncts; that sexual feeling between a man and woman was natural and should be celebrated. it is worth pointing out that when Lawrence says Mrs. Morel selects her sons as lovers, he does not mean literally. He is not writing about incest, but about a powerful emotional connection. Lets come to the styl

15、e . First, symbolism. In the Lord of the Flies, Lord of the flies origins from Hebrew, the original meaning is head of the evil. In the novel , Lord of the flies not only means the hanging vile head of the pig, but in the deeper level the inescapable darkness of human nature.Ralph symbols ego, Jack

16、id, Piggy the super ego and Simon the spiritual ability, who regards human being and animals as equal. Piggy spec symbols the morden civilization, the conch the power ,the authority. The beast is a part of man that could not be hunted or killed. in An Out Post of Progress by Joseph Conrad, Ivory rep

17、resents African rescouce. “The cross” much out of the perpendicular, slept the man who had seen the beginning of this ;who had planed and had watched the construction of this outpost of progress. Presents the civilization is decayed and not accepted. In the view of Evelyn Waugh and Kingsley Amis, it

18、 was not until the first volumes of Anthony Powells sequence, A Dance to the Music of Time, were published in the 1950s, that an English novelist achieved the same command of atmosphere and precision of language with consistency, a view supported by present-day critics like A. N. Wilson. This is the

19、 more remarkable, given that English was Conrads third language. Powell acknowledged his debt to Conrad.“E. M. Forster is for me the only living novelist who can be read again and again and who, after each reading, gives me what few writers can give us after our first days of novel-reading, the sens

20、ation of having learned something” Trilling said. in A Passage to India by E. M. Forster, criticised by his friend Roger Fry ,noted for use of symbolism as a technique in his novels , the Marabar Cave is usually seen as a symbol: its Nifty drawings, piles of holes, spotted, charredconnections to the

21、 most basic and primitive elements in our nature. In The Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man the protagonists name is derived from Daedalus, a mythical craftsman of ancient Greece, who built an inescapable Labyrinth for King Minos of Crete. When Minos turned against and imprisoned him in the Labyri

22、nth, he made wings and escaped by flying across the sea. This is Joyces symbol for an artists flight to exile. Symbolism In Araby by James Joyce , Araby presents the east ,the old ,misery, mysterious ,sextual place.The chalice in “I imagined that I bore my chalice safely through a thong of foes.” sy

23、mbols the female. Next the the Stream of the Consciousness As a novelist Woolfs primary concern was to represent the flow of ordinary experience. Her emphasis was not on plot or characterization but on a characters consciousness, his thoughts and feelings. In her essay Modern Fiction, Virginia Woolf

24、 comments on the flaws of writers such as H G Wells, Arnold Bennett, and John Galsworthy. Their narrow focus on the material and lack of affinity for the spiritual or realistic, is evidence enough that they have fallen short in the literary sense. In 1920s, a well-known “ quarrel with some of the es

25、tablished British novelists of the time.To object strongly to “materialists. “ because they are concerned not with the spirit but with the body. “ that they write of unimportant things; that they spend immense skill and immense industry making the trivial and the transitory appear the true and the e

26、nduring. Its characteristics are that the action of the plot moves back and forth through present time to memories of past events and dreams of the future. and use dramatic monologue & free association. James Joyce attempted to make a fiction that would reflect the whole life, conscious and subconsc

27、ious, without being limited by conventions of language. In Ulysess, T his formless, plotless novel records the thoughts, shades and fleeting flashes of the mind, suggestions etc., as they rise, and is written in a great variety of styles, to correspond with the mood of the moment, ranging from the s

28、implest to the highly poetical, from the vulgar to the beautiful. Next satire. In the end of Lord of the Flies, Ralph and the other people were rescued, but when Ralph thought back the cruel life in the island these days he couldnt help crying. Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of ma

29、ns heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy, the future nuclear war. Out Post of Progress is not a progress, but a degeneration. The concept of civilization is opposed to savagery, primitive nature and wilderness, (the original state of man from which he has developed to become civilized). implies a hierarchical social and cultural structure under the supremacy of European culture and society.Next detached island . in An Out Post of Progress Conrad is at pains to create a sense of place,