Characteristics of Modernism in Jewel in the Crown and Heart of Darkness

Characteristics of Modernism in Jewel in the Crown and Heart of Darkness

A Modern novel, Jewel in the Crown, by Paul Scott, depicts the latter stages of imperialism's erosion and explores it through the lives of individuals and their relationships as symbolic of larger societal conflicts and political events. Jewel was written well into the 20th Century and employs thematic concepts and literary forms characteristic of Modernism, as well as being significant in its literary-historical context of the decline of British Imperialism/post- colonialism in India.

"Some of the major issues to which twentieth century literature responded in ways generally known as 'Modernism' are: a growing awareness of a variety of cultures which had differing but cogent world-views; exploitation of other cultures and races, and a society built on power and greed" (Lye, 1996). The fact that Modern literature explored these issues with more scrutiny, candor, and depth than previous literary eras. "This is the story of rape, of the events that led to it and followed it and of the place in which it happened" (Scott, 1966). The rape is of a young British women in colonial India, but also of the rape of India by Britain, "the affair...ended with the spectacle of two nations in violent opposition, not for the first time nor as yet for the last because they were then still locked in an imperial embrace of such long standing and subtlety it was no longer possible for them to know whether they hated or loved on another, or what held them together and seemed to have confused the image of their two destinies" (Scott, 1966). The events, interactions, and sentiments of Daphne, the woman in question, and those of the ot...

... middle of paper ...

.... For Jewel in the Crown and Heart of Darkness, the questions and criticisms of British Imperialism are brought up metaphorically through their stories they tell, and so interrelated in subject theme, mark a specific period in time tin B ritish History.

Works Cited and Consulted

Agatucci, C. (2001). ENG 103, Survey of British Literature. Central Oregon Community College.

Damrosch, D., et al., ed. The Longman Anthology of British Literature: VolB. Compact ed. New York: Longman-Addison Wesley Longman, 2000.

Lye,J. (1996). Some Cultural Forces Driving Literary Modernism, (Dept of English, Brock Univ.) 2F55: Modern Fiction. http://www.brocku.ca/english/courses/2F55/forces.htm [last accessed: June 2001].

Scott, P. (1966). The Jewel in the Crown. Vol. 1 of the Raj Quartet. Rpt. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.