Title: Modes of 'Different' Time in American Literature
Abstract: David Daiches, in The Novel and the Modern World, explains superbly the discursive historical context in which such innovative modern writers as James Joyce or Virginia Woolf became deeply concerned with ways of capturing the psychological facts in human consciousness behind actual, concrete facts: “to make the presentation of states of mind dependent on the step-by-step relation of a sequence of events in time is to impose on the mental activity of men a servile dependence on chronology which is not in accordance with psychological fact. It was as a way out of this difficulty (arising from a new realization of the complex and fluid nature of consciousness and the desire to utilize this realization in the portrayal of character) that the ‘stream of consciousness’ technique was introduced into fiction.”1 Daiches also adds, “Looked at from one point of view, the ‘stream of consciousness’ technique is a means of escape from the tyranny of the time dimension.”2 As is demonstrated through the protagonist, Leopold Bloom, in Ulysses (1922), a masterpiece of high modernism, we understand that “though the chronological scheme of the novel may comprise only a very limited time, one day for example, the characters will emerge complete, both historically and
Publication Year: 2004
Publication Date: 2004-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
Access and Citation
Cited By Count: 1
AI Researcher Chatbot
Get quick answers to your questions about the article from our AI researcher chatbot