MODERN NOVEL

 Novel: Most important and popular literary medium. Deals the relations between
loneliness and love.

 Modern Novel: Realistic as opposed to idealistic, psychological.

 Realistic: Consider truth to observe facts about outer world, about his own feelings.

 Idealistic: Create pleasant and edifying picture.

 Psychological: Nature of consciousness and its relation to time, made difficult to

think of consciousness, tends to see it as altogether fluid, existing, story becomes
unreal and unsatisfactory,

STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS
Origin of the term: William James coined the phrase to describe the flux of the mind, its
continuity and yet its continuous change.

Consciousness: An amalgam of that we have experienced and continue to experience.

Every thought is a part of the personal consciousness, unique and ever-changing. We seem
to be selective in our thoughts, selectively attentive or inattentive, focussing attention on
certain objects and areas of experience, rejecting others, totally blocking others out.

 Means of escape from tyranny, indicate the precise nature in a limited time, gives a
complete picture of a character both historically and psychologically.
 A technique that reveals the character completely historically as well as
psychologically.
 Development in character which is difficult.
 Character can be presented outside time and place.
 First represents the presentation of conscious from chronological sequence of events,
and then investigates a given state of mind so completely.

TECHNIQUE OF CHARACTERISATION
Previous methods: Two different methods were adopted in the delineation of character.

(i) Personalities of characters emerge from a chronological account of events and reactions
to it as in Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge.

(ii) First a descriptive portrait of the character is given and the resulting actions and
reactions elaborate that picture as in Trollope’s Barchester Towers.

 “Stream of consciousness” novelist is responsible for an important development,

dissatisfied with these traditional methods.
  Impossible to give a psychological accurate account of a man, interested in dynamic
aspects rather than static.
 Present moment is specious denoting the ever fluid passing of the ‘already’ into the
‘not yet’, gives the reaction to a particular experience at the moment but also his
previous and future reactions.

 1. The Ancestors

The immediate ancestors of the modern English novel, who dominated the earlier
part of the 20th century, were Wells, Bennet, Conrad, Kipling and Forster.

E.M.Forster (1879-1970)
Belong to group of elder novelist, moralist, belonged to the tradition of cultural liberalism,
admired in early years but later become generally reflective.

Aim of the civilized life: To enhance the quality of personal relation not by pomp and
power and aggressiveness but by gentle and quiescent qualities.

Characters: Ordinary persons of middle-class life, moved by accidents.

Characteristics: Conflict between good and evil, between cruel, philistine & unperceiving
and the good which is lively, entertaining and sensitive. Humorous development with the
combination of body and spirit, reason and emotion, work and play, architecture and
scenery, laughter and seriousness. Extraordinary lightness of touch and sensitive spirit,
never weak or sentimental, unexpected and sudden death of the characters, distinctions
between civilized and barbarism.

 A Passage to India (1924): Gives genuine picture of Indians and English during the
British rule, personal relations, barriers of civilization---race, creed and caste.

 When Angles Feared to Tread (1905): Contrast between two cultures---English and
Italian, contrast between two Italian cultures---idealistic and practical.

 In the Longest Journey (1907): Contrast, friendship, unhappy marriage, falsehood

and sham, and of good life.

 A Room with a View (1908): Contrast between self-understanding and self-

deception, morality play.

 Howard’s End (1910): Contrast between civilized and uncivilized, great variety in
incident and character, a symbol of plea that civilization depends on the people
gifted with insight and understanding.

Virginia Woolf (1882-1941)

Most distinguished writer, used ‘stream of consciousness’ technique, impressed by Ulysses,
fine sense of language, gifted with poetic temperament, got experiences from books than
from actual life.

Characteristics: Depicts the stuff of life, thought, feelings, and impressions.

Novels:

 The Voyage Out (1918): Meaning of life.

 Night and Day (1919): Conversation and introspections revealing the doubts and
hesitations while facing the reality of experience.

 Jacob’s Room (1922): Meaning of experience, unsolved mystery.

 Mrs. Dalloway (1925): Long interior monologue.

 To the Lighthouse (1927): Reality.

 Orlando (1928): Liveliest, fantasy.

 The Years (1937): Simpler form of fiction

 Between the Acts (1941): Personal failure to write meaning from experiences.

William Golding (1911-1993)

Most significant post-war novelist.

Important novels:

 Lord of the Flies (1954): Savagery, religious theme of original sin.

 Pincher Martin (1956)

 Rites of Passage (1980)

 The Paper Man (1983)

Golding was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1983.