Seminar paper from the year 2005 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,0, University of Wuppertal, course: Proseminar “20th Century English Short Stories”, language: English, abstract: “Eveline” is the second of James Joyce’s stories that got published. First it appeared in the Irish Homestead in 1904 before being published as the fourth chapter of the Dubliners in 1914. It is Joyce’s first attempt to write from the point of view of a woman. This young woman, having a dull job and “leading a life of quiet desperation with a brutal father, is offered escape by a sailor” (Tindall 21). Although this offer seems very promising, Eveline does not manage to leave her home behind. Instead, she accepts a life full of frustration. To understand this inability and lack of courage one has to take a closer look at the environment surrounding her. ”Who and what is Eveline that her life [...] should be ending before she is twenty?” (Beck 111), is a valid quotation. We will see that Eveline is kept imprisoned in a cage made of tradition and subordination hard to break out. “Eveline” is not a story of action but a narration taking place only in the protagonist’s consciousness. Therefore the interest does not lie in the events, but in the reasons leading to the final decision. The story, like all Dubliners, shows Joyce’s critical and melancholy view of life in his native town Dublin.
Seminar paper from the year 2005 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 1,0, University of Wuppertal, course: Grundlagenseminar Amerikanische Literatur, language: English, abstract: ”At the heart of the modernist aesthetic lay the conviction that the previously sustaining structures of human life, whether social, political, religious, or artistic, had been either destroyed or shown up as falsehoods or fantasies” (Norton 1814). Thus literary features such as sequence or unity turned out to be only “expressions of a desire for coherence”. This “false order” had to be renovated to express the new interpretation of the world as a broken image. As a consequence, modernist literature abandons former traditional ideals. Instead of the tyranny of chronology, it is the construction out of fragments that now becomes a key formal characteristic. Without showing any linear sequence of events, Faulkner’s narrative technique in ”A Rose for Emily” mirrors exactly this modernistic ideal. By avoiding the chronological order of events, Faulkner gives the reader a puzzle consisting of fragments. Nevertheless, he gives hints that make it possible to put these fragments together and thus reconstruct the chronology of the life of Miss Emily Grierson. In order to find out “what dates are carved on [her] tombstone” (Moore 196) the reader has to become active which is a common attribute in modernist texts. “A chronology of ‘A Rose for Emily’”, as stated by McGlynn, “is useful for at least two reasons: it makes the plot more easily comprehensible, and it helps clarify the function of time in the story” (461).
Seminar paper from the year 2005 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 1,0, University of Wuppertal, course: Grundlagenseminar Amerikanische Literatur, language: English, abstract: ”At the heart of the modernist aesthetic lay the conviction that the previously sustaining structures of human life, whether social, political, religious, or artistic, had been either destroyed or shown up as falsehoods or fantasies” (Norton 1814). Thus literary features such as sequence or unity turned out to be only “expressions of a desire for coherence”. This “false order” had to be renovated to express the new interpretation of the world as a broken image. As a consequence, modernist literature abandons former traditional ideals. Instead of the tyranny of chronology, it is the construction out of fragments that now becomes a key formal characteristic. Without showing any linear sequence of events, Faulkner’s narrative technique in ”A Rose for Emily” mirrors exactly this modernistic ideal. By avoiding the chronological order of events, Faulkner gives the reader a puzzle consisting of fragments. Nevertheless, he gives hints that make it possible to put these fragments together and thus reconstruct the chronology of the life of Miss Emily Grierson. In order to find out “what dates are carved on [her] tombstone” (Moore 196) the reader has to become active which is a common attribute in modernist texts. “A chronology of ‘A Rose for Emily’”, as stated by McGlynn, “is useful for at least two reasons: it makes the plot more easily comprehensible, and it helps clarify the function of time in the story”.
Seminar paper from the year 2005 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,0, University of Wuppertal, course: Proseminar “20th Century English Short Stories”, language: English, abstract: “Eveline” is the second of James Joyce’s stories that got published. First it appeared in the Irish Homestead in 1904 before being published as the fourth chapter of the Dubliners in 1914. It is Joyce’s first attempt to write from the point of view of a woman. This young woman, having a dull job and “leading a life of quiet desperation with a brutal father, is offered escape by a sailor” (Tindall 21). Although this offer seems very promising, Eveline does not manage to leave her home behind. Instead, she accepts a life full of frustration. To understand this inability and lack of courage one has to take a closer look at the environment surrounding her. ”Who and what is Eveline that her life [...] should be ending before she is twenty?” (Beck 111), is a valid quotation. We will see that Eveline is kept imprisoned in a cage made of tradition and subordination hard to break out. “Eveline” is not a story of action but a narration taking place only in the protagonist’s consciousness. Therefore the interest does not lie in the events, but in the reasons leading to the final decision. The story, like all Dubliners, shows Joyce’s critical and melancholy view of life in his native town Dublin.
Seminar paper from the year 2005 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 1,0, University of Wuppertal, course: Grundlagenseminar Amerikanische Literatur, language: English, abstract: ”At the heart of the modernist aesthetic lay the conviction that the previously sustaining structures of human life, whether social, political, religious, or artistic, had been either destroyed or shown up as falsehoods or fantasies” (Norton 1814). Thus literary features such as sequence or unity turned out to be only “expressions of a desire for coherence”. This “false order” had to be renovated to express the new interpretation of the world as a broken image. As a consequence, modernist literature abandons former traditional ideals. Instead of the tyranny of chronology, it is the construction out of fragments that now becomes a key formal characteristic. Without showing any linear sequence of events, Faulkner’s narrative technique in ”A Rose for Emily” mirrors exactly this modernistic ideal. By avoiding the chronological order of events, Faulkner gives the reader a puzzle consisting of fragments. Nevertheless, he gives hints that make it possible to put these fragments together and thus reconstruct the chronology of the life of Miss Emily Grierson. In order to find out “what dates are carved on [her] tombstone” (Moore 196) the reader has to become active which is a common attribute in modernist texts. “A chronology of ‘A Rose for Emily’”, as stated by McGlynn, “is useful for at least two reasons: it makes the plot more easily comprehensible, and it helps clarify the function of time in the story”.
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