Comprehensive Exam
Modern British and American Literature
Sample answer
12/ 15/ 2010
1) From James Joyce’s Dublin to Virginia Woolf’s London, the urban landscape figures prominently into many seminal works of modernist literature. At the same time—and perhaps because of the modern emphasis on urbanity and mass culture—the natural world often takes on an ethereal or mythical quality in the hands of modern authors. Outline this urban/ rural dichotomy by discussing at least four to six major modernist works—explaining how each author deals with the city, the country and the inhabitants of both regions in varied ways.
Within most discussions of modernism there is mention of the great social changes of the period: the publication of Freud’s works in English and the increasing presence of psychoanalysis, particularly within the educated classes; the ideas of Einstein and his general theory of relativity; Nietzsche and his declarations about the irrelevance of religion and the necessity for individual strength; and, the manifold technological advances that brought forth— with the same broad swath— advances in both living conditions and advances in humanity’s ability to extinguish itself in mechanized warfare. All of the aforementioned conditions of modern existence intersect in the life of the modern city.
Many thousands migrated from rural to urban living during this period, and the act of migration itself, and the newly found living conditions, tended to isolate people from each other, from their heritage, and even from themselves. Modernist works often show us characters who are struggling in some ghetto against institutions and mass movements to retain some sense of identity, culture, or simply to make ends meet. In contrast to this stark and lonely urban existence is the portrayal of the countryside as an idyllic and nourishing place. This urban rural dichotomy is apparent in novels, poems and drama of the period.
BC Southam in his work on T.S. Eliot’s poems expresses the idea that the Wasteland Eliot refers to is not only the physical wasteland of an industrialized modern society, but a spiritual wasteland that is the contemporary society in which the poem was composed. The famous refrain “unreal city” is a haunting reminder of the alienation and the anonymity of life in early 20th century London.
In Ulysses, James Joyce creates a picture of an alienated modern person— an advertising man in his middle ages who is in many ways ‘lost at sea’ . Leopold Bloom makes his way trough his own ‘unreal city’—Dear, Dirty, Dublin, and grapples with most, if not all, of the problems of existence in the modern world (spiritual, moral, physical, sexual, etc.). Bloom’s sense of alienation is compounded by being Jewish in a society, while not openly hostile in its anti-Semitism, in some ways places Jews in a similar position to blacks in 2oth century American—relegated to invisibility. Leopold is also cut off from his past and his future by the fact that he is the last in his family line, as his father and son have both died. In some ways, history (at least the family history) ends with Leopold. He is also cut off from his wife, and much like Homer’s hero from the Odyssey there is a need to defend his wife (Molly) from the advances of other men.
In Juno and the Paycock Sean O’Casey paints a picture of life in a Dublin tenement during the early part of the century. The family no longer works together as they might have in a rural setting. The father (Captain Boyle) doesn’t seem to work at all, and to further illustrate the emasculated man of the ghetto, the other man of the house (Johnny) is an amputee and emotionally disturbed young man. The only male character who has any real agency within the play is the English Barrister (Bentham) who eventually swindles the family and impregnates Mary out of wedlock: In Captain Boyles words, “he’s done to us the same as he’s done to Mary…” Though there is some reason to see this swindle as typically English in a time when Ireland certainly was trying to wrest itself from the English grasp. But it is perhaps a more salient point to see Bentham as a representative of the legal institutions that hold this urban world together—the laws. In a rural setting and in that distant mythic past the law is an agreement among people, and in the modern urban world the law is a tool for the rich to hold onto power over the poor.
In Ernest Hemingway’s’ the Sun Also Rises, there is a clear distinction between the freedom and pastoral existence in the countryside and the constrained and artificial lifestyle of Paris, and even Pamplona. This theme is rife in the works of Hemingway—with his love and respect for rural life in his early stories such as Father’s and Sons, in which a man meditates on the valuable things his father taught him (hunting and fishing), and ruminates on his father’s inept attempts to teach him about sex. In the end, he reconciles his feelings believing that his father teaching him about shooting was much more important than his father teaching him about, what is to most people an important topic in human relations. It implies that even important human relations pale somewhat to the beauty and freedom one may find in a venture into the country on a hunting trip. An interesting parallel presents itself in The Sun Also Rises, as Rick who cannot function sexually due to war wounds, finds comfort away from society (the city) during a fishing trip. It seems to be the only really peaceful part of the book. This symbolism is not so much a representation of Hemingway’s sexual difficulties as it is a rejection of society, relations with other people in a modern context, and an idealization of the pastoral, the countryside, and the lost life of men doing work in the open air.
Another very idyllic vision of nature is contained in Dylan Thomas’s Fern Hill in which he recalls the beautiful farm of his childhood, and, though not explicitly, he contrasts this with a modern urban existence. It is implied that he is no longer on the farm, and it seems clear that his youth has passed. The two ideas youth passing and the ‘loss of the farm’ seem conflated, as Thomas paints a picture of lost youth as being like moving away from the beautiful countryside, and so this exodus becomes the end of beauty and the end of being a part of something and of being known among one’s fellows (“prince of the apple towns”).
In the closing scene of DH Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers, Paul Morell turns and walks back toward the lights of the town, and it seems certain that he is only going back toward the city because he has lost everything and has nowhere else to go. His family and his romantic relationships are in a shambles. The city is contrasted in many places in the novel. The city is the place where his beloved older brother William dies. The town is the place where Paul’s father goes to get drunk. The town is the place where Paul encounters Clara Dawes and her husband within the confines of the factory. And the countryside is where Paul and Miriam meet, and this is the relationship that was the closest thing to love Paul knew. Whatever Lawrence’s exact ideas were about the city and the country, there is certainly a distinct contrast in Sons and Lovers.
Richard Wright, in his powerful novel Native Son presents what may be the strongest indictment of the city as a place of corruption, greed, fear, oppression, and horror. Bigger Thomas’s character and situation is interesting partly because he seems to have almost no agency, as even the murder he commits is not essentially his idea, and is really more of an accident than a premeditated murder. Once the mistake is made, however, the wheels of the machine are turning, and it is only a matter of time before the machinery of the modern city catches and executes its “justice”.
Of course, like most important concepts the role of nature is debated in modernist works. Joseph Conrad, for example, in the Heart of Darkness shows nature as a somewhat dark and destructive force. Of course, for Conrad it is more a matter of human nature being dark and destructive. Also, in Mrs. Dalloway, London is portrayed as being very pleasing and positive to Clarissa Dalloway. This feeling of being able to turn off negative emotions is expressed by Clarissa as she is going out to buy the flowers, and then crossing Victoria Street declares the foolishness of people, but then quickly goes on to express her love of life. It is expressed in the general stream of Clarissa’s consciousness, and it seems a very existential sort of moment. “I don’t understand this life. I don’t really even like many of its moments, but somehow, for some unimaginable reason, I love it” is what she seems to be saying.
Perhaps, more than a renunciation of the idea that the modern urban life is deadening and alienating, Clarissa’s declaration of love of life, on that particular day in June, is meant to suggest an antidote to the malaise of modernity. Perhaps Clarissa’s solution is an expression of the need for an existential approach to a world that is senseless and brutal. There is a suicide in the book, after all. And the counterpoint to the very heaviness of Semtimu’s demise seems to be, “for there she was.” The very fact of Woolf providing a fictional character with an antidote to modern life shows the author’s own concern about the possibility of existence in the modern urban environment.
Leopold Bloom expresses a similar sentiment in the early part of Ulysses, as he goes out in the morning to the butcher’s shop. As he turns into Eccles Street, feeling bad and tired, he says to himself, “I’m here now. I’m here now.” Repeating it seems to emphasize this same compromise with modern urban existence Clarissa Dalloway has also made—an existential, almost Zen like focus on the present moment.
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