Modern fiction in the early 20th century saw experimentation with new themes and techniques. Novelists like Henry James, Joseph Conrad, and Virginia Woolf explored hidden realities and psychological depths. They used techniques like stream of consciousness to represent complex inner thoughts. Modern novels dealt with a wide range of themes influenced by science and war. They presented life in realistic, and sometimes pessimistic, ways. The fragmented structures of novels reflected the disintegration of society. Overall, 20th century fiction moved away from traditional forms towards innovative styles that captured the uncertainties of modern times.

1. WELCOME

2. Modern Fiction
The early decades of 20th century saw an astounding profusion of fiction by the novelists like
Henry James, Samuel Butler, Arnold Bennett, H.G.Wells and Joseph Conrad.
Henry James and Joseph Conrad were interested in the hidden realities of the heart.
Their novels are the earliest indicators of modernist trend in fiction.

3. Features of modern novel
• Variety and complexity of theme
• Realism
• New narrative techniques

4. 1. Variety and complexity of theme
• Novels have been written practically on all themes and subjects which appeal to modern readers.
• H.G. Wells was influenced by new scientific developments and in his famous novel The Invisible Man he
anticipates the modern science fiction.
• Because of technological and scientific advances, there has been a tremendous increase in science fiction
novels.
• But after 1914 a change crept into English novel.
• The uncertainty of the war and post war years is reflected in the concern of many novelists-ie, about the
disintegration of the society and the lack of positive optimism.

5. 2. Realism
• In modern novel all the facets of contemporary life, pleasant and unpleasant, beautiful and ugly have been
realistically presented with detailed accuracy.
• It presents the doubts, uncertainties, frustrations and anxieties of modern man. It is therefore pessimistic in
tone.
• It contains a largescale criticism and condemnation of contemporary values and of civilisation. There is a
frank treatment of love, sex and marriage in modern novel.
• The psychology of sex and psychological theories of Freud, new biological theories and methods of birth
control influenced the treatment of sex in modern novel.
•

6. 3. New narrative techniques
• The modern novel is incoherent and has a fragmented and non-linear structure as a result of the social and
political upheavals of the times.
• The I world war dislocated the fabric of the society. Thus the writer was compelled to alter the narrative
techniques to suit the changing situations.
• The very nature of life and thinking process become complex. This led to pluralities in the mode of
narration.
• They devised new techniques like the interior monologue and stream of consciousness technique to unravel
the workings of the mind.
• Thus the stream of consciousness novels of James Joyce and Virginia Woolf came into vogue. Thus the old
concepts of plot, character and narration were shattered.

7. Novelists of 20th Century
•
• Joseph Conrad
• Conrad is regarded as the most artistic of modern novelists. Conrad brought in a smell of sea and distant lands through his
novels. He was chiefly concerned with the response of man in the face of danger and crisis and also to situations that compel an
individual to make a moral choice. His own experience of the sea, particularly the Malayan water found expression in his novels.
• Conrad’s first two novels Almayer’s Folly and An Outcast of the Islands are full of promises of greatness. They reveal his own
experiences of Malaya.
• The Nigger of Narcissus, one of his finest novels, is a moving story of life on board ship. It is remarkable for its powerful
atmosphere, its impressionistic descriptions of sea-scape and its character study. In this novel Conrad tried two technical
experiments, the break-up of the narrative into small scenes and to give many and varied pictures of the same scene from diverse
angles.
• His next novel Lord Jim: A Tale , the greatest of his novels, introduces for the first time Conrad’s technique of oblique narration
(indirect narration, the actual words of the speaker, but, as related by a third person).
• His other noteworthy works include Heart of Darkness and Nostromo-A Tale of the Seaboard. These are adventure stories as well
as samples of the new direction in fiction.

8. • D.H. Lawrence
• He was the most outstanding literary figure between the two world wars. His very first novel The White
Peacock introduces his main theme, the unhappy human relationship especially between man and woman
• Sons and Lovers is a highly moving and powerful novel which deals with the relationship between son and
mother. It is an autobiographical novel of great artistic merit.
• The Rainbow was banned as obscene as it deals with man woman relationship. Sex occupies an important
place in Lawrence’s novels. He discards Victorian prudery and inhibitions in the treatment of sex and presents
an original, imaginative and modern view of love and sex.
• In The Rainbow, Women in Love and Lady Chatterley’s Lover he deals with conflicts and soul storms of sex.
His treatment of sex is frank, free and straightforward that The Rainbow and Lady Chatterley’s Lover were
banned in England. These novels were frank explorations of animalistic sexual impulse in man

9. • Virginia Woolf
• She was the daughter of the eminent Victorian scholar and critic Sir Leslie Stephen. Her marriage with
Leornard Woolf strengthened her literary career. Her first two novels The Voyage Out and Night & Day are
largely traditional. But soon she rejected the linear narrative mode and realism of the Victorian novel and
adopted the stream of consciousness technique. She used this technique to reveal the innermost consciousness
of psychic conditions of Jacob in Jacob’s Room.
• She focussed on the workings of the mind of her characters and looked upon the volatile consciousness as the
true reality. Her fiction is a conglomerate of reality and dreams with past, present and future jumbled together.
This technique was handled with great technique in Mrs Dalloway , To the Lighthouse and The Waves. Her
Orlando, a Biography was a great artistic work.

10. Thank You