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Account for some of the ways in which modernist writing has represented
subjectivity
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As a result, in the literary works of the Modernist
movement, there is a great deal of subverting not only the conventional cultural
organizations which the human subject is oppressed by, but also traditional
syntactic, narrative and linguistic structures manipulated in order to reflect
the subjective fragmented consciousness of the individual character to the
greatest possible extent
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In the writings of the period, there is, therefore, an interest to
represent the subjectivity of individuals, the conscious self, since this is a
more reliable technique of reflecting human nature in comparison to external
reality
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For
instance, the linear development of plot through narrative structure is
destructed and arranged in a way to best reflect subjectivity of characters as
Lukacs points out in: ‘The Theory of the Novel’ (1974), with regard to the
narrator in works:
‘…may be moved and impressed by the strange, profound experiences of an
individual and pour them into the mould of an objectivised destiny’
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Virginia Woolf’s ‘Mrs Dalloway’ (1925) is an example of innovative Modernist
writing in which the author subverts narrative technique through free indirect
discourse in order to represent the internal subjective thoughts, opinions and
sensations of her characters
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The mind receives a
myriad impressions--trivial, fantastic, evanescent…Life is…a semi-transparent
envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end’
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This intricate formal method obscures the authority of
the third-person omniscient narrator that may be prevalent in texts using a more

direct style of narrative; consequently, the subjective perspective of
characters becomes the dominant focus in the work
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Dalloway’, Woolf obstructs syntactic order in the novel since there are no
chapter divisions, so to unfold the consciousness of characters in a free
flowing method, in addition to the lack of speech marks to indicate the
introspection of each character, which provides them a narrative voice
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Consequently, Modernist
poetry such as ‘The Wasteland’ aims to expose the subjective realities that is
more reliable to explain the human consciousness than objective truths
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In: ‘The First Surrealist Manifesto’, published in 1924, for
example, Andre Breton accounts for the illogical or surrealist forms of writing
which may depict individual psychological experience, and the real condition of
the humankind that is illustrated by Nietzsche:
‘The absolute rationalism which remains in fashion allows for the consideration
of only those facts narrowly relevant to our experience’
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In order to portray this incongruous, meaningless nature of
the individual, Breton suggests that innovative forms must bring the underlying
subconscious imagination and illusions to the surface structure of writing in a
logically ordered yet void society where there is no meaning for the individual
mind
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Through the notion of
the protagonist’s transformation into a vermin, Kafka is able to illustrate the
dehumanization of the individual being by the routine bourgeoisie life and the
mechanical cycle of everyday modern world which is arbitrary to the subjective
values of humans
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The obscurity of dream and reality leads to an ironic,
humorous commentary:
‘He was a creature of the boss’s, spineless and stupid’
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Dalloway’
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S Eliot, towards the changes in modern society
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The denouement of the plot with the protagonist’s death through alienation
highlights the tragedy of the objective reality which only grants humans a
social rather than individual worth:
‘He recalled his family with affection and love
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Without doubt, this highlights disintegration of social values in units such as
the family, as the fact that Gregor is isolated and viewed useless is relatively
more absurd than his transformed state
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It is possible to conclude then, that writings constructed in the period of the
Twentieth century Modernists; a period notable for destruction along with many
great technological and economical affluences, led to ground-breaking
innovations in literary style, implying the inadequacy of standard forms in
literature to represent the realistic condition of the human life
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