Modernism

[TheRedOne]

I'm struggling with my essay, like really struggling.

It's to do with modernism and how modernism is characterised by rejecting norms. I thought it'd be easy.

I'm focusing on Joyce's Dubliners, the poetry of TS Eliot and Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway but my mind has literally gone blank.

I've so far written a bit but I think I'm just missing the whole point.

What conventions are the Modernist writers rejecting? I realise that there was wars and social changes and that they were moving away from traditionalism but trying to find points of comparisons between the three texts is proving really difficult. I could write a fair bit about any of them but comparing them is REALLY difficult.

Can anyone help? Even if just a bit?

Thanks

[myrna22]

I'm struggling with my essay, like really struggling.

It's to do with modernism and how modernism is characterised by rejecting norms. I thought it'd be easy.

I'm focusing on Joyce's Dubliners, the poetry of TS Eliot and Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway but my mind has literally gone blank.

I've so far written a bit but I think I'm just missing the whole point.

What conventions are the Modernist writers rejecting? I realise that there was wars and social changes and that they were moving away from traditionalism but trying to find points of comparisons between the three texts is proving really difficult. I could write a fair bit about any of them but comparing them is REALLY difficult.

Can anyone help? Even if just a bit?

Thanks

My advice would be to do some research. Really. It is all there. Google your little heart out. A little bit more work, of course, then just coming on here and asking people to tell you want you need to know. But, in the end, it's much better to do your own research, sort through the material you find, use what you think is the best and most reliable information. Won't you feel so much better about it than having what may or may not be reliable information just handed to you?

[TheRedOne]

My advice would be to do some research. Really. It is all there. Google your little heart out. A little bit more work, of course, then just coming on here and asking people to tell you want you need to know. But, in the end, it's much better to do your own research, sort through the material you find, use what you think is the best and most reliable information. Won't you feel so much better about it than having what may or may not be reliable information just handed to you?

Hmm.. You seem to be assuming that I haven't already done my research? I've spent days at libraries and have a lot of research with me but as I said, the points of comparison are where I'm falling short which also happens to be where the marks lie. I'm not asking anyone to hand it to me I'm just wondering if anyone can help... it's a forum where people can discuss ideas.... sometimes there are some ideas that just aren't in google or text books, especially comparisons.

I'm at a block, everyones been there.

Thanks any way though.

[dfloyd]

is quotation marks.

[kiki1982]

I think the OP was talking about contents, Dfloyd, but nonetheless there might be something in what you say...

Now, out of pity, because I think you are being serious, I will try to give a hint. And I am a newbie to Modernism myself so, in the end, my suggestion might be faulty...

I have to say I have not read Dubliners, but I did read a short story of Joyce recently. I haven't read TS Eliot either, but I have recently read Mrs Dalloway

Consequently, I cannot hand you points of comparison, but maybe my observations on the 20s are valuable to you.

Now...

Think about it. I don't know where you are and how much you actually read up on social history... WWI had passed. It was a huge shock because they thought it was going to be finished at Christmas. Sadly, it turned out to be a huge stationary conflict that lasted for 4 years with millions of dead. The outbreak was a shock in itself and even the concept war was a shock. There hadn't been a war for about 50 years so the people who volunteered did not know where they were going and that people were actually shot there and died... Sad but true. Then came the whole thing with 'shell shock' or like we call it now 'post traumatic stress'. They had no idea how to treat it (that it even existed, hence the appropriate name 'shell-shock'), but as a consequence people's perception of mental illness went from incurable and 'something wrong in the head' to curable and 'poor person with a mental problem'. There were families who had probably believed the first when they waved their son out on the platform and whn he came back he was a different lad with horrible nightmares. They had to believe the second. I believe Mrs Dalloway addresses this on the verge of true psychiatry.

Secondly, as all men decided to go to war, their jobs were taken over by their wives (the country had to keep producing, yes?). The thing was, after then war the men came back, but the women rather liked to go out and ean their money, so they pressed for doing that, and more independence. It was the dawn of a new class of women with their own professions, not ruled by their husbands. Of course that is only for non-working class women. Some of that is also in Mrs Dalloway. There was also a big thing of women having relationships with women and dressing in men's clothes. Fashion also turned that way: hair was cut short (unseen for the whole of history!) and in a boyish fashion, the corset went and the bra made its entry. Flat and straight was the credo.

Modernism, I believe, also rejected 'the class-system', but only in so far that your parents' class dictated what you were. It should be possible for one to rise up in society for his merit alone. But don't get carried away: classes still continued to exist happily, in contradiction to postmodernism that asks questions about that as well (if I am not mistaken), instead makes women and men distinctly different for example. They exist on only-one level though: money. For the first time, industrial people (owners of mills and the like) were able to socialise with the rich who had been rich for eternity (nbility f.i.). Before, this would not have been possible or they were looked down upon and it took them a few generation to get themselves into the crowd. Now, rich people (some of them empoverished by the high war-time prices) happpily married off their daughters to rich sons of indutrial people, or mrried their daughters.

The old and the new, I believe, play a big role in both Mrs Dalloway and the short story I read of Joyce. Certainly Clarissa Dalloway reminisces about old times (then we must think about the 1900-10s).

I don't know if this helps at all?

[TheRedOne]

I don't know if this helps at all?

Thanks, it did help.

I've touched upon some of these issues, I guess I can elaborate in more detail.

I haven't really touched upon class although I do see how I might be able to, I think Mrs. Dalloway is a good medium to do so and I could just use it as a contrast. Eliot's seems to show disdain for it while Clarrissa embraces it, to an extent.

I'm just going to really scramble for it try to explain some quotes to make up the word count.

Thanks again, it's much appreciated.

[kiki1982]

I was glad to help.

One can understand in theory, but it is possible not to understand in practice.

[Michael T]

1) Get hold of something like this to start you off...ISBN 0-415-19648-5
Modernism (Peter Childs) read from cover to cover twice.
Then...
2) See your tutor - ask what exactly they are looking for.
3) Make sandwiches and coffee.
4) Spend two days living in your university/college library.
5) Write essay.

6) Find equivalent book to (1) for each genre and repeat steps 2-5 above for all assignments.

(You should now be on first name terms with at last two of the college/university librarians)

7) Good grades will automatically follow.

[Abras]

@Michael T: that list reminds me of my three-point plan for success:
1) Jump off a tall building while your buddy films it
2)??????
3)Fame and fortune (Whoo!)

[Michael T]

@Michael T: that list reminds me of my three-point plan for success:
1) Jump off a tall building while your buddy films it
2)??????
3)Fame and fortune (Whoo!)

Cool ...you should do it!

I took the time out to leave the ISBN number of a very good book for getting to grips with Modernism. I don't see your useful post here?