The parallactic nature of modernist writing

When it comes to discussing modernist writing, we consider important and relevant to see how
Modernism developed and what influenced it. The Victorian Age is known to have brought in
mind the first modern problems such as Feminism, Marxism, Darwinism and Agnosticism, but, in
the same time, to have been old-fashioned, governed by strict rules, sexual prudery,
conservatism and conventionality. What Modernism does is to encapsulate the new developments
of the period 1900-1940 Einsteins Theory of Relativity, Kandinskys paintings or Freuds
theory of mind and to project them into its literature. As we read in Kerns Modernist Novel,
Modernism reunites interpretations of how modernists used those innovations to capture the
political, social, and economic history of the period (Kern, 2011, 11). These changes can be easily
noticed in the writings of Joyce, Proust or Lawrence, where autobiography is combined with
fiction, the taste of madeleine brings back a childhood and women develop a new consciousness.

This new perspective over literature also brings new ways of perceiving the reality. We move on
from the Victorians concerned with their times, traditions and perfect families to the Modernists
interested in future, dystopian societies and new genetic discoveries. The perspective over things
changes, being in favour of the new (Ezra Pound make it new) and rejecting the traditional. The
rupture was clear. It is also a moment when the self becomes a defining concern and when time
and space become fragmented and relative. In her essay, Modern fiction1, Virginia Woolf
discusses the literature written in the past, for example Jane Austens books or Fieldings,
considering that even though they did not have the most modern writing tools, they still managed
to write masterpieces. She also puts into discussion that improvements have been made in the
technologic fields, but not in literature. A path has not been found yet, she considers, but it is only
known what manages to inspire and which ways should be followed and which not.

We read in McHale (McHale, 2007) a fragment from Virginia Wools essay: Woolfs essay
describes a shift from the Edwardian to the Georgian era, in art and life, in which all human
relations have shifted those between masters and servants, husbands and wives, parents and

1
McNeille, Andrew, Ed. The Essays of Virginia Woolf. Volume 4: 1925 to 1928. London: The Hogarth Press, 1984.
http://www.massey.ac.nz/massey/fms/Colleges/College%20of%20Humanities%20and%20Social%20Sciences/EMS
/Readings/139.105/Additional/Modern%20Fiction%20-%20Virginia%20Woolf.pdf
children. And when human relations change there is at the same time a change in religion,
conduct, politics, and literature. Virginia Woolf observes that as the times have changed
radically, it is clear that those changes will influence life quite as much and literature as well.
The position of women in the society has changed, a new conscious starting to awaken in them.
Life can mean much more than getting married and being the Victorian angel in the house.

A very important shift is the distortion of perspective that we encounter now. It can be observed
in Virginia Woolfs and James Joyce literature. As we read in McHale (2007), parallax records
changes of vision induced by the shifting position or perspective of observers. In Mrs Dalloway
we find parallax from its first pages. An advertisement written on the sky by a plane brings
confusion for the observers. As the war is still a very recent memory, the minutes while deciphering
every letter do agitate the passers-by, but they soon ignore the writing. Only one observer remains
tremendously shaken by it: Septimus Warren Smith, a World War I veteran, suffering of post-
traumatic stress disorder, is feeling guilty for his friends death and thinks that he is trying to
communicate with him. An apparently simple fact, the advertisement written on the sky, can bring
so different interpretations: a reminiscence of the war and a message from another world.

Another parallax containing Clarissa and Septimus involves their situation in the same location,
London. Clarissa goes to buy flowers, preparing to host a party at her house. She has a moment to
think of her youth, of love, she is nostalgic over a past that implies people that she might soon see
again, while Septimus feels the presence of his dead friend, Evans, following him. He keeps
threatening his wife that he is going to commit suicide. Both Clarissa and Septimus have a similar
thought in mind, death, but due to different reasons. While Clarissa is worried by aging and death,
as she enjoys life, Septimus decides to kill himself so as he can escape his thoughts that keep
tormenting him.

To the lighthouse gives another good example of parallax, that being the lighthouse itself. For
every member of the Ramsay family it has a different meaning. As the weather is not appropriate
for a visit, for the children it is a place extremely desired to be seen, as a hardly reachable
destination. For Mrs Ramsay it is the desire to see everyone married and happy. For Mr Ramsay
is the division into the need of attention and love of his wife and the desire for his work to be read
after his death. For Lily it is the struggle to demonstrate that women can paint and they can have
other purposes in life than getting married. In James the lighthouse brings notable transformations.
From the hate in his childhood when his father did not allow him to sail to the lighthouse and the
need for his mother to the acceptance of his fathers way of being and finding similarities between
them.

A very representative fragment for our discussion is one than can be found at the end of the third
part of the book: One wanted fifty pairs of eyes to see with, she reflected. Fifty pairs of eyes were
not enough to get round that one woman with, she thought. Among them, must be one that was
stone blind to her beauty. One wanted most some secret sense, fine as air, with which to steal
through keyholes and surround her where she sat knitting, talking, sitting silent in the window
alone; which took to itself and treasured up like the air which held the smoke of the steamer, her
thoughts, her imaginations, her desires. What did the hedge mean to her, what did the garden
mean to her, what did it mean to her when a wave broke? (Lily looked up, as she had seen Mrs.
Ramsay look up; she too heard a wave falling on the beach.) And then what stirred and trembled
in her mind when the children cried, Hows that? Hows that? cricketing? She would stop
knitting for a second. She would look intent. Then she would lapse again, and suddenly Mr.
Ramsay stopped dead in his pacing in front of her and some curious shock passed through her
and seemed to rock her in profound agitation on its breast when stopping there he stood over her
and looked down at her. Lily could see him.2 Once again, Virginia Woolf uses parallax to
demonstrate the multiplicity of perspectives shown by different viewers. Fifty pairs of eyes were
not enough to get round that one woman with () meaning that so many perspectives were not
enough to reunite all the features of the same character. Some people can be fascinated by a
beauty, while others can ignore it completely. The presence or the absence of some people can
modify the way they are perceived by the others. Also, Lilys perception over Mr and Mrs
Ramsay and over the house changes in time. As a longer period of time has passed, the
significance of the things might have changed accordingly.

Virginia Woolf is not the only writer that makes use of the parallax. James Joyce also makes use
of it in his novel Ulysses by confronting his readers with the perspectives of three characters:
Stephen, Bloom and Molly. It is interesting to analyze Molly from her perspective and from
Blooms perspective. He considers her a loose woman because she of her connections with other
men, even though he is also involved in an affair. Mollys monologues changes the perspective

2
https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/w/woolf/virginia/w91t/
from a considered by the others loose woman and her acceptance of her body and sexual desire.
This is another change made by the Modernists, the creation of a free and unconventional
feminine character who embraces a very libertine way of existence.

The Modernists intention has been the rupture from the conventional norms of life and writing
and the production of something completely new. The new technological and scientifically
discoveries and also the social changes have modified completely the thinking of the late 19th
century and early 20th century. The new way of writing intended breaking the norms used by the
Victorians, the rejection of the realism and, as Virginia Wools was saying in her essay, finding
the appropriate path to write. As the before writers, even though without as many resources as
now, still created masterpieces.

The perspectives over time and space has changed as well. We moved to an increased
abstractisation, the never neutral observation of an object, to the modification of time and space.
Time becomes insecure, taking any possible dimension demanded by the writer. It is also noticed
now the modification of the observers perception over an object depending on its position
towards it and the overwriting of a text which has previously been erased. All of these
modifications intended a rupture from the traditional, a new identity and a new path.
 Bibliography

1. Kern, Stephen, The Modernist Novel, Cambridge University Press, United States of America,
2011

2. Levenson, Michael, The Cambridge Companion to Modernism, Cambridge University Press,

Cambridge, 1999

3. McHale, Brian, The Edinburgh Companion to Twentieth-Century Literatures in English,

Edinburgh University Press, 20065. McNeille, Andrew, Ed. The Essays of Virginia Woolf.
Volume 4: 1925 to 1928. London: The Hogarth Press, 1984

4. Woolf, Viriginia, Mrs. Dalloway, The University of Adelaide, South Australia

See here: https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/w/woolf/virginia/w91md/

5. Woolf, Virginia, To the Lighthouse, The University of Adelaide, South Australia.

See here: https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/w/woolf/virginia/w91t/