Dissent in gender roles (Aspects of Modernism)

SUBMITTED
BY
ABHISHEK AMAN
ROLL NUMBER-P0602053

A Research Proposal
For
Ph.D. Admission

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
JAMIAMILLIAISLAMIA
Statement Of Purpose:
As a student of literature, I was always swayed with the powerful
imagery in certain writings which made me wander a different world
in my imagination while some text created such a sense of
attachment that it made me cry with, or sometimes for the
character. Alice Walker’s ‘The Color Purple’ made me so sad on the
condition of the protagonist whereas, similarly, I felt absolute joy
reading love poems of Andrew Marvell. As I was finding my interest
lacking in certain areas, there were certain writings which made me
absolutely awestruck with its complexity and self-reflectiveness. My
primary interest lies in modernism wherein the idea of self-analysis
caught my undivided attention incorporating in itself multiple
themes from love to war, idea of being to metaphors of death, from
sense to absolute absurdism. There are so many texts and poetries
which require all our attention if we are to explore every theme
related to multiple others, in its totality. We see a drastic change in
social acceptance of gender roles, the language and the perspective
of characters developing over time as we move towards the great
war and beyond it. I feel like ‘Ron Weasley’ from J.K Rowling's novels
who is amazed and horrified at the same time, yet, eager to go all
the way.

However, as it is impossible to cover every writing in one research

paper, therefore, as I move forward with my research, I would focus
on certain selective works which shall include Virginia Woolf's 'Mrs.
Dalloway' and 'To the Lighthouse', Samuel Beckett's 'Waiting for Godot',
William Faulkner's 'As I Lay Dying', Joseph Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness',
etc including poetry of T.S Eliot, Ezra Pound, W.B. Yeats etc. Also, the
said research would include literary theories and criticisms of some
major writers such as Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Julia Kristeva, Luce
Irigaray etc with an inclusion of theories such as Feminism,
Psychoanalysis and Marxism.
AIM of the proposed research:
The research aims to find out how drastically personal beliefs,
social norms and basic ideology changed over the course of
war. What is the basic difference between modern, modernity
and modernism when looked via psychoanalyst theory and the
idea of post structuralism. How modernism facilitated women
writers to work relatively more openly and what were the
consequences of war in determining the gender roles? What
theories work in conjunction with modernism in facilitating
certain techniques such as absurdism, existentialism, stream of
consciousness etc.?
Research Methodology:
The research aimed to achieve here will be based on the major
texts written before, during and after the proposed age of the
literature, thus analyzing a shift in language and pattern of the
before-mentioned texts that shall include both novel and poetry
and reading between the lines, the cause and effect of the
events leading to a literary piece based on such incidents. Also,
the progress shall take place in comparison with the previous
literary pieces and thus visualizing a change in pattern of the
thought process of the writers as well as the characters. A
thorough reading of criticism of such texts therefore will also be
included during the process of the research. This method is
perhaps most suitable on the grounds that many of the writings
have already undergone an analysis of the same individually,
however, I wish to look at all the questions coinciding under the
same microscope. The motive of my research is to find more
about how a certain event and in this case such a drastic one,
can affect and change the literature of not only its
contemporary times but of succeeding times as well and thus,
to know the cause of such a phenomenon on human lives,
social structure and shared beliefs of people at large. Stress
will be on theme analysis, language analysis and the form of
the language. Since the proposed research is of analysis of
past events, I shall be relying on the available manuscripts,
news cuttings and literary pieces available from that time as
well as the large amounts of research that might be available.
I'll be trying to discern the state of mind of writers and the
characters through Psychoanalytic, Marxist and
Feminist approach.

Objectives:
1. The change in roles of women just before, amidst and
post-world war as well as a decline in gender
dependency.
2. An account of trauma pertaining the disasters of war
portrayed in the modernist novels. (Identity crisis and
existentialism)
3. An analysis of the modernist canonical literature
including Stream of Consciousness techniques.
4. An overlook on the conflict studies arising after world
war.
5. The idea of discernible homosexuality portrayed in
modernist texts.
Sources to be referred:
This research would require textual approach wherein primary
sources will include different novels from different writers based
on the events of war and modernism including a major aspect
of gender roles and a change or shift from its fixed roles during
its preceding ages, along with the criticism of the same over the
years. Since the research includes events of past, therefore I
shall be relying on manuscripts, internet and newspaper
cuttings of that period. Also, I'll be depending upon the
research papers written for each individual aspect of my
research and try to see them together in coherence.
References:
Primary:
• A Room of One’s Own. London: Hogarth Press, 1929.
• MRS DALLOWAY. Woolf Virginia: edited Bose Brinda:
Worldview Critical Editions, 2017.
• TO THE LIGHTHOUSE. Woolf Virginia: Paperback
Publication, 2019.
• WAITING FO GODOT. Beckett Samuel: LONGMAN
STUDY EDITION: edited Prasad G.J.V: Pearson. 2017.
• Heart Of Darkness. Conrad Joseph: edited Satpathy
Sumanyu: Worldview Publications, 2016.

Secondary:
• https://rc.library.uta.edu/uta-
ir/bitstream/handle/10106/11780/Purschwitz_uta_2502M_
12098.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
• https://dc.etsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1789&cont
ext=etd
• Selected Poems. Eliot T.S. and Yeats W.B.: Doaba
Publications, 2015.
• https://www.acschools.org/cms/lib07/PA01916405/Centrici
ty/Domain/348/As%20I%20Lay%20Dying.pdf