Modernist and Dystopian Literature Flashcards

Flashcards covering the transition from the Victorian to the Modern novel, including key techniques, authors such as James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and George Orwell, and their major works.

Victorian novel

A literary form with a clear structure and an all-knowing narrator, which modern writers rejected as insufficient for depicting modern life and mental confusion.

Modern novel

A literary form that focuses on the subjective mind, showing inner thoughts and feelings more than external events, using non-linear time and a mixture of past and present.

Stream of consciousness

A term from William James's 'The Principles of Psychology' (1890) describing the continuous flow of thoughts and feelings in the mind.

Interior monologue

The written narrative technique used to represent the mental process of the stream of consciousness, prominent in the works of James Joyce and Virginia Woolf.

Psychological novelists

Writers such as Joseph Conrad, D. H. Lawrence, and E. M. Forster who focused on the development of the human mind and relationships.

Experimental novelists

Modernist writers like James Joyce and Virginia Woolf who used new subjective narrative techniques to give voice directly to characters' thoughts.

Committed novelists

Writers like George Orwell and Aldous Huxley who used literature to address social and political problems, often influenced by Marxist ideas during the 1930s.

James Joyce

An Irish writer born in Dublin in 1882 who used Dublin as a symbol of modern society and explored the critical view of strict Catholic morality.

Dubliners

A collection of 15 short stories published in 1914 by James Joyce depicting ordinary people living in a state of paralysis and dissatisfaction.

Paralysis

A central theme in Joyce's work that can be physical (caused by poverty) or moral (caused by religion, politics, and fear of change).

Epiphany

A sudden inner revelation where a normal event allows a character to understand an important truth about life, though it rarely leads to real change.

Dust

A symbol in the story 'Eveline' that represents paralysis and decay.

Sea

A symbol in the story 'Eveline' that represents escape and freedom.

Virginia Woolf

A modernist and feminist novelist born in 1882 and a member of the Bloomsbury Group, known for exploring the inner world of feelings and memories.

Bloomsbury Group

A group of intellectuals and artists who rejected Victorian morality and traditional rules, which Virginia Woolf joined in 1904.

Moments of being

Virginia Woolf's term for instances when characters suddenly understand hidden reality, similar to Joyce's concept of epiphany.

Mrs Dalloway (1925)

A novel by Virginia Woolf that takes place in a single day in London, focusing on the inner lives of Clarissa Dalloway and Septimus Warren Smith.

Septimus Warren Smith

A sensitive character in 'Mrs Dalloway' who is a war survivor suffering from shell shock, hallucinations, and guilt.

George Orwell

The pen name of Eric Blair, a writer who criticized totalitarianism and believed literature must show social problems.

Nineteen Eighty-Four

A dystopian novel by George Orwell set in Oceania, a totalitarian state controlled by Big Brother and the Party.

Newspeak

The official language of Oceania designed to remove words to prevent free thought and rebellion.

Doublethink

The act of accepting two opposite ideas at the same time as a means of mental control by the Party in 'Nineteen Eighty-Four'.

Airstrip One

The name given to future England within the totalitarian state of Oceania in Orwell's 'Nineteen Eighty-Four'.

Ministry of Truth

A government department in 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' that changes history and facts to control the minds of the population.