Essay on Modernism: Mind and James Joyce

Submitted By dreamoppa
Words: 343
Pages: 2

Modernist styles
The desire to construct a new subjective order out of a chaotic world is at the heat of modernist thinking. In the ‘Ulysses’ James Joyce shows the representation of one day in the lives of small number of people who’re living in Dublin, the capital of Ireland, set in 1905. The concept of ‘Ulysses’ is nothing special and expresses boring, daily life, within the story there is a funeral. Characters wander through the day, gossip, earn their daily wage, get drunk, and generally reflect on the state of their lives. The style of writing James Joyce choose to use in the ‘Ulysses’ is stream of consciousness, which presents the audience every thought of the protagonist. Through the stream of consciousness shows us the fragmented nature of life. Joyce uses truncated sentences throughout the text “Strings. Listen.” to convey a sense of fragmentation. When combined with the following sentence it becomes clear that this is the thought process of the protagonist. “One of these instruments what do you call them: dulcimers”, where the protagonist effectively asks and responds to his own question. This stream of consciousness non-linear narrative represents Joyce’s vision of the disorganised modern world and a character’s subjective attempt to organise it.
With the idea of rejection in the values of the society, a modernist expresses their beliefs in a separate way. In ‘The Hollow Men’ T.S. Eliot paints his perspective on his generation, and also develops the ideas in