The modern novel

1. THE MODERN AND
DYSTOPIAN
NOVEL

3. THE MODERN NOVEL: MODERNIST
WRITERS
-The structure of the novel remain unaltered till the second decade of the 20th century, it was firmly
anchored in a social world with the gain or loss of social status as its main theme.
-The shift from the Victorian to the modern novel was caused by a gradual but substantial transformation of
British society
-The modern novelists rejected omniscient narration and experimented with new methods to portray the
individual consciousness; the viewpoint shifted from the external world to the character’s mind.

4. -Time was subjective and inner
-The narrative technique that modern novelists employed was the stream-of-consciousness that is the
continuous flow of thoughts and sensations that characterise the human mind
-Some modern novelists were known in particular as psychological novelists because they centered their
attention on the development of the character’s mind and on human relationships.
THE MODERN NOVEL: MODERNIST
WRITERS

5. James Joyce E. M. Forster Joseph Conrad

6. THE MODERN NOVEL: VIRGINIA WOOLF
She grew up in a literary and intellectual atmosphere.
The death of her mother affected her deeply and brought about her
first nervous breakdown.
1915 - published her first novel “The voyage out”
1925 - published her masterpiece “Mrs Dalloway”, in which
experimented successfully experimented her new narrative
techniques
Because of anxiety and fear caused by the Second World War, he
lost his sanity and drowned herself in the River Ouse.

7. WOOLF’S POETRY AND JOYCE
Human personality: continuous shift of impressions and emotions.
Importance of events and their chronological order.
Subjective reality.
The quality of the words.

8. MRS DALLOWAY
THE STORY:
● Clarissa Dalloway has organized a party for the evening.
● During the day Clarissa has many changes of moods.
● Her day is contrasted by the figure of Septimus Smith, a
shell-shocked veteran;
● Smith was visited by Dr. Holmes and Sir William
Bradshaw.
● The news of death of Septimus Smith intrudes upon
Clarissa’s party.
PUBLICATION: 14 May 1925
AUTHOR: Virginia Woolf

9. THE SETTING:
● The story takes place on a single
ordinary day in June of 1923 in a small
area of London.
● Woolf shows characters deep
humanity behind their social marks
● With the tunneling technique there is
the characters’ recollection of their past
MRS
DALLOWAY

10. MRS DALLOWAY
A CHANGING SOCIETY:
●The novel deals with the way people react to new situations
●The clocks’ motif as a structural connection and reminds to the
temporal grid.
THE CONNECTION BETWEEN
CLARISSA AND SEPTIMUS:
● They are similar in their response to experience
● they depend upon their partners for stability and protection.
● His psychic paralysis leads him to suicide
● she never loses her awareness of the outside world
SIMILARITIES
DIFFERENCES

11. THE DYSTOPIAN NOVEL
In 19th century, people thought utopia like a thing of the future,
ruled by democracy and science.
● Dystopia: it was the idea of a negative utopia, so it was the
darkest picture of the future.
● It changed whole social orders through literary imagination
● It was the perfect society following a sistem of tyrannical ideas
● Readers entered a social life based on some principles, whose
response was terrifying.

12. ● In 20th century, industrial society surpassed its limits and
destroyed itself
● like URRS inspired Orwell's dystopia, America inspired
Huxley's one
● in these novels, utopia and dystopia permeated each other
● the 50s proclaimed the end of ideology
● the fear of future and a nuclear war, caused by tecnology,
concerned William Golding
● he expressed the likenesses between keeping man from
barbarism and destroying them
THE DYSTOPIAN NOVEL

13. Realized by:
● Cavuti Luigi
● Del Balzo Robert
● Di Nisio Leonardo
● Xhindole Iris