Modernism
Modernism is a trend that developed in the arts at the beginning of
the XXth century striving to break away from tradition and innovate.
In literature, modernists opposed realism and sought to represent
human reality in a freer way, with such elements as stream of
consciousness (the transcription of thoughts as they arise
in the human consciousness, without imposing an order on them),
fragmentarism, multiplicity of points of view within a narration, a
different approach to time (a long book may narrate events that
happened in just a few hours, for example), a narrator that is
unreliable or is the voice of multiple characters... In essence,
modernism was about breaking free from the constraints that existed
in nineteenth century literature.
Modernism was influenced by the ideas
of such thinkers as Sigmund Freud, Nietzsche, Marx... and by the rest
of avant-garde art movements (expressionism, impressionism and cubism
in painting and atonalism in music, for example).
An American modernist: William Faulkner
William Faulkner (1897-1962) is the most innovative American novelist of his generation. In his works, he mixes a depiction of Southern rural America with strong modernist innovation in his style. This earned him the Nobel Prize of Literature in 1949. His two best novels are The Sound and the Fury and As I lay Dying. He portrays often degenerate or insane characters in his novels that are a reflection of the decadence of the southern states.
Here is a part of his novel As I lay Dying. In this novel, each fragment is the interior monologue of one of the members of a disfunctional family that fundamentally hate each other. The family is transporting the body of the recently deceased mother to another city where she had wished to be buried. Try to guess why the tone of the dialogue of this character is so peculiar. Who is Vardaman?
Vardaman
Darl and Jewel and Dewey Dell and I are walking tip the hill, behind
the wagon.
Jewel came back. He came up the road and got into the wagon. He was
walking.
Jewel hasn't got a horse anymore. Jewel is my brother. 'Cash is my
brother. Cash
has a broken leg. We fixed Cash's leg so it doesn't hurt. Cash is my
brother.
Jewel is my brother too, but he hasn't got a broken leg.
Now there are five of them, tall in little tall black circles.
"Where do they stay at night, Darl?" I say. "When we
stop at night in the
barn, where do they stay?"
The hill goes off into the sky. Then the sun comes up from behind the
hill
and the mules and the wagon and pa walk on the sun. You cannot watch
them,
walking slow on the sun. In Jefferson it is red on the track behind
the glass.
The track goes shining round and round. Dewey Dell says so.
Tonight I am going to see where they stay while we are in the barn.
