Irfan 1

Muhammad Irfan
Muneeba Rahman
ENG 501
06 October, 2015

Modernist literature is complex and can be a frustrating experience for a first-time reader. It
requires a big effort to understand the theme and concept of modernist literature. This is because
of the fragmentation and lack of the conciseness of the writing, which are main thematic
characteristics of modernist literature. Life is viewed as incoherent, experience as fragmented,
and reality as a matter of perception in modernist literature. Themes and the characters are not
necessarily linear. Modernist writings usually focus more on representing the writers ideas,
opinions, and thoughts and presenting them to the public at as a high volume as possible. It could
be an opposition to the existing social culture, social norm, a social practice or a prevailing
ideology.
Objection to traditional thoughts and moralities is another thematic characteristic of
modernist literature. The basic principle of Modernism can be seen in the background of the
family that Lawrence outlines in his story The Horse Dealers Daughter. Initially, consider
Woolf's understanding of a critical element of the "shift" essential to Modernism: "All human
relations shifted, and when human relations change there is at the same time a change in
religion, conduct, politics, and literature." Modernism is rooted in this shift. Disillusionment
and despair of the individual is a prevailing feature of the modernist writings.
Free indirect speech and free association, discontinuous narrative and multiple narrative
points of view, quotations and wide use of classical allusions are the major formal/ stylistic
characteristics of modernist literature. Stream of consciousness and interior monologue are also
important stylistic features of modernist literature. Stream of consciousness is a technique in
which the author focuses mainly on characterization rather than action or setting of the narrative.
The story, however, can be reconstructed from the thought content.
In modernistic literature, the content of the writing is represented as a long stream of
consciousness, just like a rant, that often does not have a proper beginning, middle or end. The
reader may get slightly confused as to what the writer is trying to communicate. Irony,
comparisons, juxtaposition and satire are some common elements found in modernist writings.
Modernistic works are often written in first person and are quite different from traditional styles.
Juxtaposition usually represents something which is unusual. Modernist writers use irony and

Irfan 2
satire as tools that aid them in making fun of something and point out faults, usually, problems
within their society.
During the First World War, the world witnessed the chaos and destruction of which modern
man was capable. The modernist literature produced during the time reflects such themes of
destruction and chaos. But chaos and destruction are embraced, as they signal a collapse of
Western civilization's classical traditions. Modernist novels destroy conventions by reversing
traditional norms, such as gender and racial roles, notable in F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great
Gatsby," for example. They also destroy conventional forms of language by deliberately breaking
rules of syntax and structure. William Faulkner's novel "The Sound and the Fury," for instance,
boldly rejects the rules of language, as Faulkner invents new words and adopts a first-person
narrative method, interior monologue.
Related to the theme of destruction is the theme of fragmentation. Fragmentation in
modernist literature is thematic, as well as formal. For example, T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land,"
which depicts a modern waste land of collapsed cities. The poem itself is fragmented, consisting
of broken stanzas and sentences that resemble the cultural wreckage and debris. William
Faulkner's novels, such as "The Sound and the Fury" are also fragmented in form, consisting of
rambling and nonlinear narratives. Absence of heroic figure, which is an important formal
characteristic of modern literature, represents the theme of disillusionment. For example, in
Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett, it is difficult to find out the main character.