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Characteristics of modernism in literature
Explain modernism in literature notes essay
A passage to india coursework
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There are people bustling, merchants selling, Anglo-Indians watching, and birds flying overhead. How many perspectives are there in this one snippet of life? They are uncountable, and that is the reality. Modernist writers strive to emulate this type of reality into their own work as well. In such novels, there is a tendency to lack a chronological or even logical narrative and there are also frequent breaks in narratives where the perspectives jump from one to another without warning. Because there are many points of view and not all of them are explained, therefore, modernist novels often tend to have narrative perspectives that suddenly shift or cause confusion. This is because modernism has always been an experimental form of literature that lacks a traditional narrative or a set, rigid structure. Therefore, E. M. Forster, author of A Passage to India, uses such techniques to portray the true nature of reality. The conflict between Adela, a young British girl, and Aziz, an Indian doctor, at the Marabar Caves is one that implements multiple modernist ideals and is placed in British-India. In this novel, Forster shows the relations and tension between the British and the Indians through a series of events that were all caused by the confusing effects of modernism. E.M. Forster implements such literary techniques to express the importance or insignificance of a situation and to emphasize an impression of realism and enigma in Chandrapore, India, in which Forster’s novel, A Passage to India, takes place.
Forster has a tendency to suddenly switch narratives from one point of view to another, contrasting point of view. This emphasizes another modernist outlook that suggests that there is not only one truth and rather that there a...
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...e refuses to come… I say to Him, Come, and come, come, come, come, come. He neglects to come”. (84) The meaning is never understood because the narration does not explain it or its significance, and as a result, the muddle of India is further enforced.
Therefore, much of the modernist views on India being a muddle, realistic truths, and the fact that there are multiple truths are all enforced by the narrative techniques used that E.M. Forster uses. Many of the modernist techniques that are frequently used by modernist writers work in collaboration with the manipulation of narration. In A Passage to India, most of the modernist views are reinforced by the narration shifts, multiple truths, and confusing narration or dialogue. By doing this, Forster escapes the traditional, strict forms of writing and is able to explore a new and modern literature fit for his time.
Several different literary elements work in tandem to produce the magic seen in E. M. Forster's A Passage to India. Because this novel was presented to the world less than a decade after World War I, the fantastic and exotic stories of India seized the attention of the relatively provincial society of the day, and the novel's detailed presentation of Hinduism certainly excited the imaginations of thousands of readers. Benita Parry supports this assertion when saying, "Hinduism takes its place at the core of the novel just as it lies at the heart of India" (164).
Impact of British Colonization Exposed in A Small Place, A Passage to India, and Robinson Crusoe
Guerin, Wilfred L., Earle Labor, Lee Morgan, Jeanne C. Reesman, and John R. Willingham. A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. 125-156.
...ly plays out the dilemma of the postcolonial writer that Anantha Murthy had discussed. Her writings and concerns are clearly subversive of the traditional bastions of power and keep out of the trappings of regressive social forces. On the other hand through her creative use of language, Roy engages in a dialogue with the West, challenging dominant narratives of India’s history. She does not confine herself to redressing the ‘insults’ of a colonial past, but is also keenly aware of the shadow of an older pre-colonial history. In her narrative of Transgressions, Roy offers a view of a Nation caught in transition and proves herself to be a product of its postcolonial culture. She makes no clear choices between tradition and modernity in any exclusive way, instead striving to arrive at a heterodox reality that does not belie the complexities of the Indian Consciousness.
J. Eng. Lit. Cult. becomes merely “Street” as (does) Lingayat Street, Mudliyar Street and half a dozen others in Toturpuram” (5) in a gesture of egalitarianism whose effects are literally, as well as symbolically, disorientating. The sense of displacement is compounded by changes that have occurred on the street itself over the last few decades- “instead of the tender smell of fresh jasmine.... in scented sticks and virtue, instead of the chanting of sacred hymns the street had become thud with the haggling of cloth merchants and vegetable vendors, (and) the strident strains of the latest film music from video parlours” (5-6). The incursion of these loud and nestling registers of cultural change into the sanctuary of Sripathi‟s study mirrors more significant assaults on his sense of traditions including most worryingly, the refusal of his children to lead the lives he has imagined for him: his daughter Maya has broken off her engagement to an Indian man to marry a Canadian with whom she now lives in Vancouver, and his son Arun has rejected a tradition job in favour of a career as an environmental activist. Sripathi responds to the affronts by ceasing to communicate, literally, in the case of Maya, with whom he has stopped corresponding, and figuratively, with Arun and the rest of his family, through a retreat into an increasingly self enclosed world. The narrative traces the gradual expansion of his consciousness, a process initiated by Maya‟s death in a car
Forster gives a very detailed description of each location throughout the novel. When describing the neighborhood near the Ganges River, he shows how harmony is exists with both tragedy and joy.
In the novel Howards End by E.M. Forster, the notion of connection is one that is evident throughout the novel. Forster captures this notion through the contrast of the Schlegels and the Wilcoxes who represent very different approaches to life. The Schlegel family represent the liberal intelligentsia and social attitudes of a rapidly expanding and changing London in the era in which this novel was written. With German ancestry their continental manners, philosophy and culture convey a cosmopolitanism that finds understanding and nourishment in their social circle. On the other hand, the Wilcoxes encompass a more traditional British outlook on life and socially morality, and unlike the Schlegels, they are portrayed as moralistic, chauvinistic and pragmatic. This essay will therefore analyse Howards End in order to illustrate the differences between the Schlegels and Wilcoxes, more specifically Margaret and Henry, and how their opposing views of “only connect” and concentrate”, the “seen” and “unseen” and their “inner” verses “outer” lives, clash but manage to integrate to find a common ground.
The modernist narrative developed through a mutual abhorrence of the Victorian Era’s fiction. Lawrence specifically objected the “mechanical and artificial,” (2481) that invaded the books of the past, while Woolf argued that the books of the past were written about “unimportant things” (2151). Woolf’s “Modern Fiction” argues that although the stories of the past are “so well constructed and solid in its craftsmanship,” (2151) there is no life in it, and it does not make the reader “quiver from the tremulation of the ether,” (2509), as Lawrence would put it. Woolf argued that the writers of the past spent far too much effort sorting out details and tying up all loose ends, which inadvertently sucked the life out of the novel. According to Woolf, however, the writer is not altogether responsible; rather, the writer is a “slave” who “[writes] what he must… and [bases] his work upon… co...
The dramatic personae move within the framework of a plot that is like a slow train to India: there is the noise and confusion of the departure, and the fatigue of a midnight arrival, all of which provide the illusion of a think is what Jhabvala is trying to tell us: we are all travelers on a train going nowhere. We come, we go and only India remains.(Aruna P 199)
The various forms of oppression, over race, class, or gender, all operate with one uniform principle: a belief in their own superiority over another. Just as women have always suffered under the oppression of men in patriarchal systems, a quarter of the world, the natives of India, the aborigines of Australia, the Canadians and Africans, endured the iron hand of British rule for centuries. Using the novels, Freedom at Midnight by Dorninique Lapierre and Larry Collins, and Clear Light of Day by Anita Desai, I explore the relationship between the British colonizers and the Indian people, and the relationship between Bakul, an Indian diplomat, and Tara, his innocent wife. The relationships between the two countries and the married couple represent a mother/child relationship by incorporating the idea of co-dependency. In Freedom at Midnight Great Britain plays the role of a matemal parent that 'intends' to save India, while India appears to be a rambunctious child, needing to be tamed. Within Desai's novel, Clear Light of Day, Bakul is a self-serving parent who sees hope in reforming Tara and 'intends' to rescue her from her primitive world in Old Delhi. While both Britain and Bakul begin with good intentions, the result of their efforts, especially Britain's, proves to be detrimental to India and Tara, respectively.
Throughout the novel A Passage to India, by E.M. Forster, and Burmese Days, by George Orwell, the authors use race, culture, economics, and liberal humanism to discuss various colonial issues. These issues include controversies, power structures, injustices, and the idea of syncretism between the colonizers and the colonized. A Passage to India focuses largely on using culture and liberal humanism to explore issues of colonialism while Burmese Days mainly uses race and economics to explore these topics. While the novels use different methods of exploration, both novels very successfully take on the task of discussing the very colonial issues of controversies, power structures, injustices, and syncretism.
Sharpe, Jenny. “A Passage to India by E.M. Forster.” Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. James P Draper, Jennifer Brostrom, and Jennifer Gariepy. Vol. 77. Detroit: Gale, 1993. 253-57. Rpt. of “The Unspeakable Limits of Rape: Colonial Violence and Counter-Insurgency.” Genders 10 (1991): 25-46. Literature Criticism Online. Web. 4 Mar. 2011. .
Yes, I agree with EM Forster that A Passage to India is not a political novel. Instead, it explores the vastness of infinity and seems (at first) to portray nothing. In those two words alone, `infinity', and `nothing', is the allusion of wondering, and wandering spirits. The title, A Passage to India, evokes a sense of journey and destination. When we string these two ideas together the novel begins to reveal itself as a garland worn in humble tribute to India. With this garland around his neck, Forster also pays homage to the Shri Krishna consciuousness as expressed through the Hindu religion. The clumsy attempts of the two great religions of Christianity and Islam to understand India represent forster's own efforts, and the journey he makes to India is tracked throughout the novel.
The early years of the twentieth century saw the rise of the novel as a popular genre in the literature of the war-struck Edwardian England. Novelists like Joseph Conrad, E.M.Forster, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce and D.H. Lawrence gave the form new dimensions. Among these writers E.M. Forster made a mark in the literature of his age through his last novel A Passage to India (1924), which was entirely different from Forster's other novels in that it dealt with the political occupation of India by the British, a colonial domination that ended soon after the publication of this novel. Forster, a liberal and humanist in outlook, emphasised the importance of love and understanding at the personal level in this novel.
India constitutes a large number of diaspora all over the world. Migration of people in various countries is no longer a surprising issue. Immigrants endeavour to settle in adopted land. Though they adapt foreign way of life and culture yet the pull of past intervenes in their life. They become nostalgic and feel alienated. If out of these immigrants some choose writing as their profession, they consciously or unconsciously give vent to their diasporic experiences in their writings. They attempt to focus on pains, dilemma, discrimination and conflicts they have to face there. Through their imaginary characters they catharsise themselves.