BEGC 112
BRITISH LITERATURE: EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY
IGNOU BEGC 112 Solved Free Assignment
BEGC 112 Solved Free Assignment July 2023 & January 2024
Section A
I. Explain the following passages with reference to the context.
Q. 1. “What are you saying Septimus”, Rezia asked, wild with terror, for he wazs talking to himself. She sent Agenes running for Dr. Holmes. Her busband, she said, was mad. He scarecely knew her. “You brute! You brute!” cried Septimus, seeing human nature, that is Dr. Holmes enter the room.”
Ans. Context: These lines are taken from Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf.
Explanation: Members of the upper class in Mrs. Dalloway, including Hugh Whitbread and Lady Bruton, are devoted to preserving their traditions and justify their supremacy by defending one another’s faults.
Thus Hugh, a shallow glutton, is indulged and defended by Lady Bruton and Clarissa, among others. Likewise, money and a lordly demeanor shelter the psychiatrist Sir William from judgment.
Lady Bruton would like to make the problems of the British Empire, such as unemployment, disappear by exporting them and English families to Canada.
She has “lost her sense of proportion” in her Canada obsession, but she is exempt from the evil forces of Sir William, whereas Septimus is not, in part because she belongs to Sir William’s class. IGNOU BEGC 112 Solved Free Assignment
The upper class lives in an insular and make-believe world that is declining, but they do not intend to acknowledge this decline.
The Conservative Party is about to lose power and be replaced by the Labour Party, at which point Richard will retire and write a book about the great war-waging family of Lady Bruton.
While Hugh might be preoccupied with society and Sir William with amassing power and money, they are forgiven their sins due to their social status.
Miss Kilman in her ugly mackintosh and Septimus in his shabby coat will not be forgiven their sins, because they are not armored with money or status. Nobody will empower them or defend their faults.
Q. 2.”…..but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”
Ans. Context: These lines are taken from The Second Coming by W.B. Yeats.
Explanation: These lines describe the destruction brought on by the War, but the last two lines in especially read almost like a prophecy of the Second World War, predicting the arrival of “the worst,” such as Adolf Hitler, who was “full of passionate intensity.” IGNOU BEGC 112 Solved Free Assignment
Despite the fact that Yeats was neither a prophet nor a foreteller, his words foreshadow the horrific fascist brutality that Hitler would unleash two decades later, starting World War II (1939-45).
Yeats juxtaposes the end-of-the-world scenario with the historical background of the First World War, which partially changes the work into an eschatological work – writing about the end of the world.
The future-looking occurrence of a corrupt world that would quickly come to an end had been predicted by the biblical revelation.
As a result, the poem contains a historical background that is weaved around the Biblical story of Jesus’ birth, crucifixion, and resurrection, which bears the promise of his potential second coming to save mankind.
Q. 3. “We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation, With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.”
Ans. Context: These lines are taken from Journey of the Magi by T.S. Eliot.
Explanation: The Magus, the speaker, claims that they would do the same journey again if they had to because going to Bethlehem to see the wonderful event was more than enough. IGNOU BEGC 112 Solved Free Assignment
But the encounter raises the question: Did they travel for life or for death? They were present when Jesus was born.
However, the birth of Jesus, his death, and the founding of Christianity go far beyond our ridiculous and childish ideas of life and death.
When Jesus was born, their pagan religion perished along with the arrival of the Son of God.
They felt foreign to their old pagan environment and that all of their idols were untrue when they returned to their countries.
Jesus’ death marks the beginning of a new era and a new religion. The speaker comes to the conclusion that he would be content to experience another death in order to witness such a wonderful birth.
Q. 4. “He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be
One against whom there was no official complain,
And all the reports on his conduct agree
That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a saint.”
Ans. Context: These lines are taken from The Unknown Citizen written by W.H. Auden.IGNOU BEGC 112 Solved Free Assignment
Explanation: From the wording and subject matter of the poem, it may be inferred that the speaker is a bureaucrat serving as a government spokesperson.
The person to whom the elegy is addressed is identified only by the letters and numbers JS/07 M378.
The tone of the poem is established by this kind of address by the speaker’s voice, which is heard but not seen.
It lacks empathy and sensitivity and is impersonal and formal. The speaker stands in for the nameless, heartless, and merciless bureaucracy of the State or Government who exercises power over the unnamed citizens while posing as a sympathetic, helpful, and caring force.
The person (JS/07M378) has been stripped of his individuality to the point where the only people who can identify him are the many government organisations that monitor his life to ensure that he is a compliant and willing subject wholly submissive to the powers above him. IGNOU BEGC 112 Solved Free Assignment
The faceless and nameless person is portrayed as an ideal citizen who is prepared to renounce his individuality in order to adhere to the standards established by the State or government in order to preserve its totalitarian control.
In essence, this is the ongoing fight between the government and the populace. The divide between the population and the Superpower structures deepens when the latter erects a totalitarian dictatorship.
Auden, who was influenced by Marxist theory, emphasises modern issues that are layered with totalitarian states in his writing.
He sees the faceless and voiceless citizen as a cog in the State’s mechanism who performs all the duties that would be required of an obedient citizen and is thus appropriately referred to as the Unknown Citizen.
Section-B
II. Write short notes on the following:
Q. (A) The major characteristics of modernism.
Ans. Modernism was a radical view-point that aspired to rejuvenate how contemporary civilization regarded life, art, politics, and science. It emerged out of the rebellious atmosphere at the beginning of the twentieth century.
The rejection of European culture as having become too corrupt, complacent, and lethargic, ailing because it was constrained by the artificialities of a society that was too preoccupied with image and too fearful of change, served as the foundation for this rebellious attitude that flourished between 1900 and 1930.
Modern intellectuals and artists were inspired to go outside Europe and its morally bankrupt civilization, notably the primitive cultures.
The outcome would be catastrophic for the Establishment because the newly developing culture would challenge authority and tradition in an effort to change modern society. IGNOU BEGC 112 Solved Free Assignment
Nihilism, or the rejection of all religious and moral ideals as the primary method of achieving societal progress, is the first trait connected to modernism.
In other words, modernists rejected the ethical standards of the society they were a part of.
Although a large majority of them were atheists, the reason they did so was not necessary because they did not believe in God or because they had strong doubts about the pointlessness of life.
Instead, they opposed conventional morality because to its arbitrariness, homogeneity, and imposition of control over people’s emotions.
For better or worse, the human soul was restrained and constrained by the laws of conduct. IGNOU BEGC 112 Solved Free Assignment
The modernists held that an individual needed to be rid of all the burdensome baggage of hundreds of years of hypocrisy in order to feel full and be a contributor to the revitalization of the social process.
The rejection of all belief systems, whether in the arts, politics, sciences, or philosophy, was added to the rejection of moral and religious standards.
The main motivation for this questioning may not have been based on doubt. The fact that early 20th-century culture was essentially reinventing itself every day was one of the factors contributing to this iconoclasm.
The world was changing so quickly due to the numerous scientific and technical advancements that were occurring, forcing culture to constantly redefine itself in order to keep up with modernity and avoid looking out of date.
Once a new scientific theory, philosophical framework, or creative movement gained popularity, it was quickly questioned and replaced by an even more recent one.
People felt a vast amount of creative energy continually lurking in the background, as if to herald the birth of some new thought or discovery, which may have contributed to their erratic behaviour.IGNOU BEGC 112 Solved Free Assignment
The modernists experienced a sense of perpetual expectation as a result of the new technical dynamics and did not want to commit to any one system that would thereby harness creativity, ultimately limiting and annihilating it.
So, for instance, around the start of the 20th century, artists experimented with a wide variety of isms, including constructivism, dada, surrealism, fauvism, expressionism, cubism, futurism, and secessionism, in response to the lack of freedom in academic art. Picasso, for example, experimented with various of these styles because he never wanted to get too accustomed to any one.
A new permissiveness in the arts was produced by grappling with all the new realities and cultural presumptions. IGNOU BEGC 112 Solved Free Assignment
Since the arts were attempting to stay up with all of the theoretical and technical advancements that were altering every aspect of life, they were now starting to breach all of the laws.
In order to more effectively convey the significance of all the new developments that were taking place, artists devised and experimented with new artistic languages, breaking ranks with all that had been taught as being sacred.
Because the norm for art had always been mimesis – the literal copy or portrayal of the look of nature, people, and society -the new art that emerged seemed unusual and radical to anybody who experienced it.
In other words, art was supposed to be evaluated according to how accurately it captured the appearance or sound of anything.
Originally from ancient Greece, this mimetic tradition was refined during the Renaissance and rose to popularity in the nineteenth century.
However, this outdated ideal was too restrictive for contemporary artists and did not adequately capture how people were now living.
The view of reality was fundamentally altered by Freud and Einstein. Freud had urged us to examine our own repressed inner worlds, and Einstein had taught us that relativity was the basis of all reality. IGNOU BEGC 112 Solved Free Assignment
New artistic forms that reflected this new subjectivity had to be developed as a result. Artists responded by creating pieces that were so deeply personal that they altered the way things actually appeared in nature.
Each each work pleaded to be evaluated as a self-sufficient entity that followed its own internal laws and logic and developed its own distinct personality.
The exploration of perversity, which is related to modernist interest in primitivism, also showed this interest.
The re-discovery of passion, a way of life that so many creative people at the period believed had been suppressed or had lay dormant, was essentially what this fascination with the forbidding and the lurid amounted to.
This stagnation, according to Friedrich Nietzsche, is the result of the 19th century’s fixation on form. IGNOU BEGC 112 Solved Free Assignment
Nietzsche attributed the development of drama in Ancient Greece to the harmony between Apollo and Dionysus, two Gods who were in constant conflict with one another, in his seminal essay The Birth of Tragedy.
Apollo stood for the very essence of brightness, reason, courtesy, culture, and temperance. Dionysius, in contrast, advocated alcohol, a primal need, and everything that was barbaric.
These two gods were worshipped equally while existing in opposition to one another, forging a balance between form (the Apollonian) and creative force (Dionysius).
The modernists agreed with Nietzsche that art had degraded because it had become too preoccupied with formal conventions and insufficiently interested in the hidden creative forces. IGNOU BEGC 112 Solved Free Assignment
The modernists were particularly interested in delving behind the surface, and what better way to do this than to examine man’s true objectives, emotions and behaviours.
This representation showed a new level of honesty: sexual depravity, impotence, sickness, disintegration, and deception.
Many people would criticise this portrayal as morally corrupt, while modernists would defend it by calling it liberated.
Ironically, the modernist depiction of human nature occurs in the city rather than in nature, as it had done throughout the whole 19th century.
At the start of the 19th century, the romantics romanticised nature as proof of God’s transcendent existence; by the century’s close, it had changed into a representation of chaotic, random existence.
The city is seen by modernists as the source of life, making nature obsolete and irrelevant.IGNOU BEGC 112 Solved Free Assignment
Q. (B) British War Poetry of the early twentieth century.
Ans. When thousands of troops and civilians were subjected to the cruelty and vengeful rage of the First World War, they began writing poetry to convey their feelings. This is when war poetry first appeared. W. H.
Auden, Wilfred Owen, Isaac Rosenberg, Siegfried Sassoon, Herbert Read, and Robert Graves were notable war poets.
Although war poetry has been produced since the very beginning of the Greek civilization, its recent emergence as a literary genre is novel.
The Spanish Civil War (1936-39), the First and Second World Wars (1914-18 and 1939-45), the Cambodian War (1968-75), as well as sporadic wars in Eastern Europe, were only a few of the wars that took place in the 20th century.
War poetry, which became some of the defining texts of the 20th century in Europe, was created by soldiers and civilians with their unique experiences of being directly and indirectly involved in the war and being of diverse nationalities.
War poetry shouldn’t be seen solely as being “anti- war.” The very big questions of life are addressed in it, including those of identity, innocence, guilt, loyalty, bravery, compassion, humanity, duty, desire and death.
War poetry is significant because it speaks for both the individual and the nation while also arousing historical and political consciousness.
Q. (C) The central theme of the poem. “The Second Coming”.
Ans. The poem, The Second Coming, was written in 1919 and appeared in November 1920 issues of The Nation and The Dial as well as Yeats’ collection Michael Robartes and the Dancer (1921). IGNOU BEGC 112 Solved Free Assignment
The poem was written by Yeats to commemorate the end of World War I (1914-18), which had left millions of people suffering, dying, being tortured, going hungry, and losing hope. Anarchy had erupted in the world following the First World War.
Many thousands of innocent people were murdered by bombs dropped during the War, leading some to believe that the end of the world was near.
People started to wait for respite from the painful events as a result of the War’s tragic results, which nearly signalled the end of the world.
This is akin to the anticipation felt by people who watched Jesus’ crucifixion and awaited his promised second coming, that is, the return of Jesus to Earth as described in the Book of Revelation (the last Book of the New Testament).
According to the New Testament, the second coming would take place at the conclusion of a terrible conflict, at which point the Saviour would appear and take all faithful people to a happy life in heaven.
In light of the terrible World War, the apocalyptic prophecy of civilization’s demise made in the Book of Revelation appeared remarkably prescient.
Numerous Christians yearned for Jesus to make a second earthly appearance as their Savior after reading the New Testament.
The title “The Second Coming”, which just has three letters, makes clear the idea of time span. IGNOU BEGC 112 Solved Free Assignment
The poet believes that Christ’s second coming will be to save mankind from ultimate devastation as proven by the First Earth War, just as Christ’s first entry into the world was to save men and women from their sins and punishments.
The poem contains obscurity and imagery. It is both a lament for the passing of the old world and a declaration of optimism for the potential resuscitation of a new one.
To illustrate its point, the poem makes use of the apocalypse and the second coming of Christ as symbols from the Bible.
The “Second Coming” is merely an event that people hope will happen, and given the reality of the disastrous conflict, only darkness remains where people imagine there would be light. IGNOU BEGC 112 Solved Free Assignment
This makes the poem incredibly pessimistic about what will actually happen.
“Yeats believed that history is cyclical, and his poem ‘The Second Coming- a two-stanza poem in blank verse – with its imagery of swirling chaos and terror, prophesies the cataclysmic end of an era.
Critics associated the poem with various contemporary calamities, such as the Easter rising of 1916, the Russian Revolution of 1917, the rise of fascism, and the political decay of eastern Europe.”
Q. (D) Symbolism in ‘The Journey of the Magi.
Ans. Literary techniques like symbols can be employed to convey concepts or attributes.IGNOU BEGC 112 Solved Free Assignment
It is a poetic and creative movement or style that expresses mystical thoughts, feelings, and mental states through symbolic imagery and subliminal suggestion.
It was developed in Belgium and France in the late 19th century. English and American authors utilised it as a literary method in the 20th century to depict anything other than the literal meaning using symbols like words, persons, marks, locations, or abstract ideas.
The Magi set out on their journey to Bethlehem in order to see a wonderful event. It ends up becoming a spiritual quest.
The tough travel in the harsh winter weather raises questions about the wisdom and value of making such a journey.IGNOU BEGC 112 Solved Free Assignment
The months were the miserable winter months. If you are familiar with Jesus’ life narrative, you will learn that he was born in the final week of December (December 25th) and that he was crucified in April, during the springtime.
In another poem, Eliot stated that “April is the cruellest month.” Winter to spring is a metaphor for the transition from life to death.
A sweet beverage known as “sherbet” is a metaphor for sensual pleasure and, thus, “Pagan” pleasure, which is hedonism or driven by the desire for sensual pleasures.
When it comes to the river’s emblem, it’s important to remember that Jesus is represented by water. The Living Water is how Jesus refers to himself in the Gospel of John.
In this case, it represents the Grace that Jesus extended. The moving stream, the foliage, and the water mill are all references to the element water, which is symbolic of fertility, birth, and light.
A water mill that is powered by the stream “beats the night.” In a watermill, the rotor is spun by the force of moving water, which can also produce enough energy to run lights. IGNOU BEGC 112 Solved Free Assignment
The reference is to Jesus’ assertion that he is the Light of the World in the Gospel of John.
Different academics have interpreted the symbol of the “three trees low on the sky” to represent the crucifixion of Christ with the two thieves on the other two crosses to either side of him.
It can also stand in for God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, or the Trinity. The Gospel of Luke claims that Jesus was crucified with two thieves in an effort to denigrate him as a rebel and a thief.
The Penitent Thief, often referred to as the Good Thief, Wise Thief, Grateful Thief, or the Thief on the Cross, was one of the two thieves.
When Jesus enters his kingdom, he isgs Jesus to “remember him.” The second, referred to as the impenitent thief, challenges Jesus to save both them and himself by demanding evidence that he is the Son of God.
A person who proclaims the arrival of Jesus is the subject of the symbol known as the “White Horse.”
III. Write short essays on the following:Q. (a) Explain the title of the poem “I think continually of those who are truly great.”
Ans. “I think continually of those who were truly great” is appropriate to the poem. The use of the verb “were” implies that the people the poet admires have already passed away, which establishes the mood for looking back on the past.
The second phrase states that these magnificent spirits, who had already existed before birth and had a history of the greatness they would experience in life on earth, were born to greatness. IGNOU BEGC 112 Solved Free Assignment
The poet uses virtually Neoplatonic terminology as he describes how these people came from the light and are returning to the light or “Spirit.”
According to Plato’s educational theory, education is just a process of recalling what one already knows.
In this poetry, great individuals are those whose memories of the lofty state from whence they have come are vibrant and fresh like spring blossoms.
The second stanza continues to define greatness as the process of remembering one’s spiritual heritage that predates the creation of the Earth as we know it, in addition to one’s human ancestry.
The poem appears to be supporting some type of reincarnation, but it also discusses the need of connecting with the cultural traditions that constitute the foundation of most great poetry. IGNOU BEGC 112 Solved Free Assignment
The poet exhorts people to “Never to allow gradually the traffic to smother/With noise and fog, the flowering of the Spirit” in order to carry on this legacy started by great people.
The phrase “creation itself praises the names of the great” appears in the final stanza. This creation is conscious of the important souls.
The poem’s closing four words succinctly explain that “those who in their lives struggled for life” are the magnificent.
Such spirits who never lose sight of the worth and meaning of life leave their mark on the sky like a brilliant sunset that one will never forget.
Those who have upheld the highest ideals in life will be remembered favourably.
Q. (b) Discuss how Virginia Woolf empoyes the “Stream of Consciousness Technique” in her novels. How did her novels differ from those novels written in the realist tradition?
Ans. The writer and the characters in the fictional work both use their imaginations. It is possible to argue convincingly that stream of consciousness fiction is firmly rooted in a specific historical moment. IGNOU BEGC 112 Solved Free Assignment
The fictional genre in question is associated with everything that has happened in the past myths, legends, literary works, cultural trends, and geographical-linguistic spaces.
Ideas and points of logic in stream of consciousness fiction connect us to society at the level of mutual give and take, as well as collective policies. That is history in the most literal sense.
Developments in psychology in the latter part of the nineteenth century revealed associative responses, which were derived from what the human senses perceived in their surroundings.
Psychologists such as William James focused on what was not limited to rational thoughts. There were physical and subliminal impressions exerting constant pressure on human consciousness. IGNOU BEGC 112 Solved Free Assignment
These could not be separated from the rational field, according to the psychologist. In a real sense, the rational, impressionistic, and associative made life immensely rich and fruitful.
That would bring the literary endeavour very close to the fluent mind and consciousness.
For example, the narrative technique in nondramatic fiction intended to render the flow of myriad impressions – visual, auditory, physical, associative, and subliminal – that impinge on an individual’s consciousness and form part of his awareness along with the trend of his rational thoughts.
The term was coined by psychologist William James in his book The Principles of Psychology (1890). IGNOU BEGC 112 Solved Free Assignment
As the psychological novel evolved throughout the twentieth century, some authors attempted to capture the total flow of their characters’ consciousness rather than limiting themselves to rational thoughts.
The writer incorporates snatches of incoherent thought, ungrammatical constructions, and free association of ideas, images, and words at the pre-speech level to represent the full richness, speed, and subtlety of the mind at work.
Because of historical pressures, writers of the stream of consciousness returned to social issues, whether they were of the individual variety, displaying confusion and mixed priorities in the family, education and market.
The psychological aspect was overshadowed by a sense of history; it revealed the people’s isolation from institutions that had previously sustained them.
The stream of consciousness shifted the focus of 20th-century English fiction to the internal worlds of characters, their minds and imaginations.
Fiction in the early 20th century was uninterested in ideas and perspectives, and it was wary of conveying a message through it.
Previously, the author focused on the contemporary world as a material reality in which ideas, attitudes, and relationships clashed.
That was the most important aspect of life. The subjective field, personal dilemmas, and uncertainties of individual humans, on the other hand, were emphasised by the stream of consciousness. IGNOU BEGC 112 Solved Free Assignment
This had something to do with the writers’ options for dealing with their world.
The first quarter of the 20th century was heavily stacked against the majority of the people, with finance and privilege wielding complete power.
In this scenario, consciousness came to the writer’s aid, allowing him or her to create a whole pattern of situations in his or her own mind where he or she could float free of all constraints.
The gap not only remained, but it also supported the newly emerging fictional form, with the writer active within it.
The ability to shape an experience inside one’s mind allowed the writer to live, feel, think, and dream as a specific persona. Stream of consciousness fiction was steeped in subjectivity.IGNOU BEGC 112 Solved Free Assignment
The writer’s subjectivity became more active than before, and the existing aesthetic principles of comedy and tragedy were no longer meaningful to him or her.
Neither was the writer moved by philosophical issues such as those addressed by George Eliot in the latter half of the previous century. The years preceding the First World War provided a stymied scenario.
The only way forward for literary writing was to address psychological anomalies. The required trend possessed tremendous power and appeal.
Its vigour remained unrivalled, and the scope was difficult to visualise under a single category or approach.
Mark Andrew Sanders’ reaction to James Joyce’s Ulysses: Reading Ulysses is a process of reacquainting oneself with various adapted styles, modes, and techniques.
Whereas Stephen is preoccupied with guilt over his failure to pray on his mother’s deathbed and intellectual speculation, Bloom’s far less organised mind frequently throws up snippets of phrases and memories from a private past and from an observed world. IGNOU BEGC 112 Solved Free Assignment
This quote makes no reference to the method and order of representation that the previous century adopted.
One notices the absence of religion, philosophy, and morality in such a literary engagement.
The key words in the quote are “adapted styles,” “intellectual speculation,” and “unsystematically.” IGNOU BEGC 112 Solved Free Assignment
We find in them a seriously accepted anarchy that goes hammer and tongs at the entrenched thought-structures. Consciousness is one area where all of this is possible.
James Joyce creates a flurry of observations and transports the reader into a memory crowded with impressions and images.
It confronts us with a comic suffusion that overwhelms us. Although the mind is focused, it is “far less organised.”
There is a past in it, but it is not an objectively verifiable one; rather, it is a private happening on its own terms.
The stream of consciousness in James Joyce is more exploratory, experimental, and creative than in Woolf.
Joyce’s variety transports us to the inner workings of the mind on a completely different level.
It investigates mythical memory, which may link an individual to previously unknown aspects of dreaming and imagining.IGNOU BEGC 112 Solved Free Assignment
A person’s consciousness may be the powerfully affecting worries that drown the psyche with burdens accumulated in the past.
Joyce emphasised persona over the person carrying hurts and traumas. In such a story, the flow of thought would pause for a moment to engage in dialogue with another mind from a different perspective.
The interaction of the two personas left the author searching for answers that did not exist. The inner tumult is more poetic, lyrical, and intimidating in the Joyce representation.
Consider language as having been liberated from the domain of experience. Joyce’s heroes relished the experience.
When one contemplated human thought processes, one was confronted with the issue of word use, of attempting to express the inexpressible. That became more akin to the literary aspects of life.IGNOU BEGC 112 Solved Free Assignment
Furthermore, consciousness faced the problem of formulating rather than expressing an experience during the thought process.
Joyce worked to expose the crux of language’s struggle with sound patterns in the vacuum, as well as to transport the reader into an unformed reality, that which was caught in the process of forming itself.
That raised the issue of the interior monologue accepting an existing situation while the goal was to pursue a situation that was in the process of forming itself. Ulysses and Finnegans Wake are two examples of such literary endeavours.
Arnold Kettle observed that the final chapter of Ulysses pushes the stream of consciousness’ method to its limit, attempting to find a verbal equivalent for a character in thought-processes.
Joyce’s goal in developing this method is to add a new dimension, another side to the manysidedness of complex life, to his objective invocation of a total situation.
This attempt, while historically associated with the development of psychology as science, is no more’scientific’ than any other literary attempt to give the impression of reality.IGNOU BEGC 112 Solved Free Assignment
There is no precise verbal equivalent for unformulated thoughts; the interior monologue may give the impression of an actual thought-track, but it cannot do more.
Kettle connects the two exploratory ventures of psychology and literature here, extending the argument that Joyce was an artist rooted in the reality of his time rather than driven by any scientific or sociological mission.
Joyce, to quote, was well-versed in current developments in psychiatric research. He understood what it was like to be jung and easily freudened. He wasn’t in Zurich for nothing.
But while he used modern psychology material for his purposes (along with considerable knowledge of anthropology and scholastic philosophy and a lifelong passion for vocal music), his goal was not that of the analyst, the scientist.
And he was bound to run into a major problem: you can’t separate the individual’s consciousness from what’s going on around and to him.
As a result, for the majority of Ulysses, stream of consciousness is inextricably intertwined with objective narrative and the description of outside fact.
The crux is Kettle’s point about the objective narrative. It emphasises the significance of connecting imagination with the facts of life that have built into them individual and sectional relationships. IGNOU BEGC 112 Solved Free Assignment
The stream of consciousness is essential to human existence and a distinguishing feature of social life.
SECTION-CIV. Discuss the psychoanalytic readings of D.H. Lawrence’ novel Sons and Lovers.
Ans. Lawrence’s “Sons and Lovers” is dominated by the Oedipus complex. The plot revolves primarily around Lawrence’s protagonist Paul and his mother’s dealings or relationship. Among Mrs.
Morel’s sons, Paul is shown to have the most serious Oedipus complex. Mrs. Morel mysteriously declares after the birth of this unloved boy, “With all her face, with all her soul she would make up for it for having brought it into the world unloved.”
The expression reveals her complexities with Paul. However, as Paul matures, he begins to fulfil his mother’s wish. IGNOU BEGC 112 Solved Free Assignment
He sticks close to his mother, trotting after her like her shadow. He watches his mother’s every physical movement as if he were a romantic lover, and he enjoys her dressing up with delight and sensual pleasure.
“Paul loved to sleep with his mother, sleep still most perfect in spite of hygienists, when shared with a beloved,” Lawrence writes.
His ambition in this world was to quietly earn his thirty or thirty-five shillings somewhere near home, and then have a cottage with his mother when his father died.” IGNOU BEGC 112 Solved Free Assignment
Several critics have noted Sons and Lovers’ ‘Oedipal’ theme.
The Oxford Companion to English Literature considers Sons and Lovers as a classic example of a novel about the Oedipus complex, despite Lawrence’s claim that he had not read Freud.
“Sons and Lovers, without appearing to be aware of it, is a profoundly Oedipal novel,” writes Terry Eagleton.
Freud’s Oedipus complex theory, which focuses on the relationships between children and parents and was first explained in a letter in 1897, is one of his most celebrated psychological theories.
Plots in works by several of Lawrence’s contemporaries explore ‘Oedipal’ situations similar to those in Sons and Lovers.”
Many critics have noted similarities in the themes of Sons and Lovers and Freud’s writings from the same time period. IGNOU BEGC 112 Solved Free Assignment
The parallel between Paul Morel’s situation and the conditions Freud describes as “universally prevalent in civilised countries” is obvious.
Alfred Kuttner was “the first critic to see in the novel a psychological dynamic between son, mother, and father, akin to what Freud had described as the Oedipus complex,” according to Andrew Harrison.
He praised the novel’s psychological acuity. Lawrence objected to Kuttner’s “reduction of the complexity of fiction to the schematic simplicity of theory.”
According to the classic Oedipal viewpoint, the novel reflects the ideas prevalent at the time in Freud’s writing, which explains Paul’s constant resentment of his father.
Terry Eagleton uses the work of French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan and Marxist theorist Lois Althusser in an interesting critical study that employs the psychoanalytic approach “to examine the ways in which Paul’s identity is created in particular social conditions.”
Eagleton’s method differs from the traditional psychoanalytic approach, which considers the novel to be a Freudian case.
Eagleton contends that attention should be paid to what the text avoids rather than what it says. The novel has a dimension similar to the unconscious, which contains repressed or denied aspects. IGNOU BEGC 112 Solved Free Assignment
“By reading Sons and Lovers with an eye toward these aspects of the novel, we are constructing what might be called the work’s ‘sub-text.”
All literary works contain one or more such subtexts, and they can be thought of as the ‘unconscious’ of the work itself.
As with all writing, the work’s insights are deeply related to its blind spots: “what appears absent, marginal, or ambiguous about it may provide a central clue to its meanings.”
Thus, Eagleton employs psychoanalytic methods to arrive at the meanings of the text that are not stated clearly, but form its “unconscious’ aspect, and which must be arrived at through careful reading; in the case of Sons and Lovers, such a reading portrays Morel in a more sympathetic light.
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