Modernism and Joseph Conrad

  

The Scream (1893)Edvard Munch

What do we know about Modernism?

Joseph Conrad’s context Wars

political uprisings,

colonial rule and unrest

The ebb and flow of economic fortunes

ALL

PLAY A PART IN THE LITERATURE OF THE LATE 19TH and EARLY

20TH CENTURIES.

3 December, 1857-3 August 1924

Other influences Cultural e.g. Women’s Rights Increased industrialism and mechanisation Scientific and technological advances Changing political climate Literary, philosophical, and artistic

movements of this period directly relate to the literature that appeared.

Cultural Issues England moving away from an agrarian economy and

toward an industrial economy. Industrial Revolution brought with it a number of

problems e.g. poor infrastructure, housing, sanitation, transportation, environmental pollution, poor working conditions, low wages, long working hours.

Women’s RightsAlong with England’s increased industrialisation and mechanisation, women’s inequality was a prominent issue.

Women’s property rights Women in the workplace Women’s suffrage hotly debated Women in the work place crucial aspect Ideally women were expected to marry and become selfless

caregivers to children and husband.

Heart of Darkness and the role of women in society.

The novella explores the question of a woman’s place in society in various ways:

The women are ‘out of it’—they inhabit a place in society away from the harsh realities of the man’s world.

This represents the traditional 19th century view of women occupying and providing a sanctified home, removed from the corrupting influence of the world of men.

The nature of 19th century Western civilisation

Europeans had long held that their view of the world was superior—a view based on transcendent truths and sanctioned by God.

But this idea came into question—throughout the 19th century, traditionally held truths came under scrutiny

The western worldview would be challenged on all fronts at breakneck speed.

The nature of 19th century Western civilisationLyell observed geological formations that challenged the then standard view, based on theological teachings that the earth was about 4,000 years old.

His Principals of Geology (1830-33) would revolutionise scientific enquiry, in a reassessment of the earth’s age.

Charles Lyell(1797-1875)

The nature of 19th century Western civilisationDarwin’s scientific work and mission aboard The Beagle would prove even more revolutionary.

Darwin’s discoveries in the Galapagos Islands grew into his theory of natural selection.

Darwin published his findings in The Origin of the Species (1859).

The survival of the fittest’--Term invented by Herbert Spencer in Principles of Biology (1864) to describe Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection of living species.

Charles Darwin(1809-1882)

The nature of 19th century Western civilisation

The discovery of such phenomena as non-Euclidian geometry and relativist physics argued for indeterminacy of thing—a stark contrast to the traditionally held view of a world of transcendent truths and certainty.

Behavior of lines with a common perpendicular in each of the three types of geometry

  

19th Century, scientific activity and discovery—science made more progress during this century than it had during the previous 20 centuries combined.

Significant scientific discoveries included:

Michael Faraday (1797-1867) English physicist and chemist (field theory).

Charles Lyell (1797-1875) Scottish geologist (geology)

John Dalton (1766-1844) English chemist (theory of atoms).

Charles Darwin (1809-1892) English Naturalist (revolutionised natural sciences).

Pasteur (1822-1895) French chemist (germ theory)

The discoveries resulted in a challenge to traditionally held truths and scientific knowledge.

Science had achieved a place that had previously been reserved for religion, and confidence in science’s ability to provide certainty increased.

Conrad and Scientific Positivsm

In Heart of Darkness Conrad questions the ability of science and facts to provide certainty when Marlow depicts the Belgian doctor who measures the heads of his patients as a fool.

RELIGION By the end of the 19th century, religion was in decline.

Reasons:

•Science had dismantled the certainties of previous ages.

•Darwinism had shaken people’s faith in the Book of Genesis or in the Divine Creator.

•Churches were ceasing to perform a therapeutic role in helping individuals to cope with life’s crises.

The nature of 19th century Western civilisation

Increased contact with non-western world through the opening of Japan in 1854 and new Imperialism brought from Westerners into greater contact with non-Western society, philosophy, culture and art.

This contact provided viable alternatives to traditional Western culture and society.

Summary of 19th Century world view

Westerners had viewed their way of looking at the world as the only one possible—evolving from Christian theology and based in absolute truths.

Consequently, they saw Western culture’s advanced technology and civilisation as validating their world view, with ALL other ways of looking at the world appearing INFERIOR, BACKWARD and WRONG.

Consequences and effects of Western world views

The challenges to 19th century western views brought into question fundamental assumptions about the nature of the world (Darwin) and the nature of the universe (Lyell).

Consequently, the moorings of Western civilisation began to erode, and the absolute truths came under scrutiny.

THE EFFECTS OF THIS CULTURAL CLIMATE PROFOUNDLY INFLUENCED THE WORLD IN WHICH CONRAD WROTE.

Early Modernism and Heart of Darkness

Conrad resisted being associated with any particular literary movement because he felt that it restricted and compartmentalised a writer’s work.

Modernism as a literary movement was the most important to his work.

Modernism is known for formal experimentation. Authors had previously experimented with some experimental

techniques, but the Modernist period was the first in which experimentation took such a prominent position.

Modernist authors were simply representing in form what they perceived in fact, that is, the fragmented world they encountered.

A more profound reason lies at the heart of the changes, i.e. the FORMAL CHANGES MIRRORED THE SOCIAL CHANGES.

Early Modernism and Heart of Darkness Conrad is known primarily as a Modernist writer. He may in fact be the first Modernist. His works evidence both the Modernist experimentation with form

and the Modernist world view. Conrad’s formal experimentation with multiple narrators in Heart of

Darkness to relate the tale and the alienation, solitude and epistemological uncertainty that his characters experience—speaks of Conrad’s Modernist world view

Conrad’s characters consistently try to find meaning and order in human existence—merely a means to stave off chaos, anarchy* and nihilism.

*political and social disorder due to the absence of governmental control:total and absolute destructiveness, esp. toward the world at large and including oneself:

Modernism –what it is not. modernism is a cultural movement which rebelled against Victorian mores

Victoria culture emphasised nationalism and cultural absolutism (a political theory holding that all power should be vested in one ruler or other authority)

Belief a single way of looking at the world, and in absolute and clear-cut dichotomies between right and wrong, good and bad, hero and villain.

View of the world as being governed by God’s will—each person and thing in this world had a specific use.

Viewed the world as neatly divided between ‘civilised’ and ‘savage’ peoples.

According to the Victorians the the ‘civilised’ were those from industrialised nations, cash-based economies, Protestant Christian traditions, and patriarchal societies, the ‘savage’ were those from agrarian or hunter-gatherer tribes, barter-based economies, ‘pagans’ or ‘totemistic’ traditions, and matriarchal (or at least ‘unmanly’ societies.).

Modernism and fictionModernism is known for formal experimentation—in fiction, this experimentation took a number of forms:

• multiple realities of uncertainty

•Narrative frame

• achronological narrators

•Multiple narrators

•Stream-of-consciousness narration/flashback/flash-forward

•Narrative—fragmented/limited/discontinuous

•Inconclusive endings/opened ended/ironic/multilayered

•Unreliable narrators

•New—previously forbidden subjects

•unsettle readers’ expectations; shock out of complacency