The Modern Sense of Self in Literature and Art

The modern age was a time of general disillusionment toward social institutions and established beliefs. In the "Communist Manifesto," Karl Marx asserted that law, morality and religion were not truths, only "bourgeois prejudices" (par. 47) aimed at oppressing the proletariat. In Twilight of the Idols, Frederick Nietzsche declares that truth itself is only an illusion. World War One brought further disillusionment toward tradition beliefs, after the idealistic "War to end all wars" resulted in the senseless death of millions of young men in the trenches. Not surprisingly, this historic and philosophical climate gave birth to a literature and art in which alienation was the theme. In Virginia Woolf's novel Mrs. Dalloway, the main characters find themselves cut off from one other, struggling to say what they really mean. Mr. Dalloway spends all day thinking about how he will tell his wife he loves her, but he is unable to say the words that evening. Shell-shocked veteran Septimus Smith thinks he has great revelations about universal love that he must share with the world, but fails every time he tries to communicate them. T. S. Eliot's poem The Waste Land expresses a similar disconnect. One character cries out to a companion, "'Speak to me. Why do you never speak? Speak./ 'What are you thinking of? What thinking? What?" (l.112-113). This inability to communicate expresses a confusion of identity. The characters are trying to shape their lives into something worthwhile to escape the banality of their mediocre existence, as shown by Peter Walsh's erratic and ill-advised attempts to find romantic happiness abroad. Like the characters, the authors, too, seem to be searching for their identity through these works. There is an apparent desire to differentiate themselves from a long literary tradition. The search to assert one's identity is a theme in modern literature and art, both in the stories of the characters and in the creative process of the works.

To express oneself is to define oneself. Mrs. Dalloway is populated with characters that are at a loss for words and struggle to communicate, reflecting a lack of a grip on their identity. Peter Walsh has trouble putting his emotions into words, mirroring his confused sense of self. When he realizes that he doesn't like Clarissa's falseness and prudery, he can only express it obscurely with the phrase, "The death of the soul" (58). He cannot clearly express what he thinks about Clarissa and is also confused about his feelings toward her. Even while he convinces himself that he has gotten over her and is in love with another woman, he loves her yet. This is clear from the effect she has over him in the final lines of the book: "What is this terror? What is this ecstasy? he thought to himself. What is it that fills me with extraordinary excitement? It is Clarissa, he said. For there she was" (194). Richard Dalloway has similar difficulty communicating. Even though he says, " it is a thousand pities never to say what one feels" (116), he is ultimately unable to do so. Through most of the novel, he plans to surprise his wife with roses and tell her that he loves her. He believes laziness and shyness prevent him from saying the words, "I love you." But it seems part of the problem is his insecurity about his identity. He does not feel secure in his claim over Clarissa because he doesn't think he measures up to the man Clarissa wants him to be. He has not made it into the Cabinet, a personal disappointment. He knows that he cannot match Peter Walsh in charm to Clarissa and admits his jealousy of Walsh. In the same breath that he calls his marriage to Clarissa a "miracle" (115), he says he has grown "rather speechless, rather stiff" (115). Because of this uncertainty in himself, he finds it difficult to tell Clarissa straight out that he loves her. There is the overshadowing doubt: If he said it, will she say it back?

The Waste Land also contains characters that suffer from a communication gulf. In the part of the poem titled "A Game of Chess," the speaker begs a companion to stay the night, then adjures him to speak; to think. "'I never know what you are thinking. Think,'" she says (l. 114). Her companion (whose lines are not in quotation marks and are probably thus internal thoughts) is thinking about the war: "I think we are in rats' alley/Where the dead men lost their bones" (l. 115-116). This relationship is strained because the first speaker is unable to get in the second one's mind; the second speaker's mind is in a distant battlefield. The shell-shocked soldier suffers an identity crisis when reintroduced into a banal existence.

This section of The Waste Land seems to be echoed in Mrs. Dalloway, which was written three years after Eliot's poem. Lucrezia and Septimus Smith also can't communicate because of the psychological suffering Septimus endures from fighting in the war. Rezia despairingly tries to ground Septimus back to reality by asking him practical questions, such as what the time is. Yet Septimus cannot concentrate on the realities of this world. Part of his identity was left behind on the battlefield, to be haunted by images of his friend and officer, Evans, killed in battle. Septimus is too alienated to reconcile with post-war life. His suicide is the sad but plausible conclusion.

As these characters searched to define their identities, so did their authors as they crafted new types of narrative structures to suit their needs as modern writers. The many allusions and conscious avoidance of traditional narrative structure in Mrs. Dalloway and The Waste Land reveal Woolf's and Eliot's search for identity as writers at the end of a long literary tradition. In Mrs. Dalloway, Woolf experiments with internal monologues, flitting between the consciousnesses of Mrs. Dalloway, Peter Walsh, Lucrezia Smith, and other characters. Unlike previous eras, where novels tended to have dramatic plots spanning years, Woolf sets her story in a single day of Mrs. Dalloway's life. There is very little present day action. It is mainly thoughts and memories of the characters. Direct and indirect speech blur together, and there is a fluid sense of time. The Waste Land also established itself as a new literary form. Whereas poems traditionally have a single narrator, The Waste Land has a multitude of voices that combine into a single consciousness. Many of the speakers are anonymous, many of them speak in foreign languages, and these voices combine into one of humanity expressing its loneliness and disillusionment. The narration is fragmented and at times disjointed in its styles and images, attempting to provide a multi-faceted picture of humanity. This approach is reminiscent of the Cubism style of art that was popular at the time. Eliot's style, perhaps was directly influenced by Cubist artists, or perhaps, independently of them, he was experimenting with new techniques to convey his ideas. This highly allusive poem, which contains copious footnotes from the author, reflects Eliot's acknowledgment of the literary tradition and his desire to craft something new out of it. Eliot alludes to the Bible, Shakespeare, Ovid, Milton, the Buddha's "Fire Sermon," and numerous other famous authors and written works. However, he does not imitate these works. The disjointed narration and message of complete disillusionment with society are uniquely modern features. Like his characters, who each speak with an independent voice although each gets only a couple lines to say his piece, Eliot establishes an independent identity by inventing a new style for The Waste Land, even while his numerous allusions acknowledge that his work is one drop in an ancient and vast literary sea.

The works of art of the period also reflect an assertion of individualism by the artists. In an age of rejected beliefs and alienation, it is not surprising that there was no united artistic movement in the modern era. Rather, the early twentieth century was a time of disunited "isms": fauvism, cubism, expressionism, futurism, Dadaism and surrealism, among others. These small movements' main commonality seemed to be a preoccupation with new means of expression. They were pushing a boundary and creating something original. As Ezra Pound advised for literature, so it was with art: "Make it new." Picasso's famous painting, "Les Demoiselles d"Avignon," is an example. Each of the five women is portrayed in a different style. The blocky shapes of the cloths show Picasso's experimentation with cubism, a style that attempted to do what was impossible in previous ones: show multiple angles of a subject at once. The fact that one of the central figures wears Picasso's face reflects a preoccupation with the question of identity. Other artists of the time also sought new ways to do art. Georgia O'Keefe painted flowers bigger and bolder than anyone before had dared. Wassily Kandinsky painted abstract works such as "Composition VII," which sought to portray the human mind and soul through art that imitated music (Sadler par. 28). Gone were the days of a single, united art style that defined the era. The modern age was about new, unique ways of expressing one's identity and the human condition in general.

The search for identity is a prominent theme in modern literature and art and in the modern creative process. This phenomenon arose partly because of a culture of alienation and a philosophy of disillusionment. Nothing was certain; all facts were in question. One's identity was in question, too. Was everyone just a cog in the industrial machine, as Marx had asserted? The characters in Mrs. Dalloway and The Waste Land seem to argue they are not. These characters are mostly ordinary people, but they assert their individuality in small ways. Mrs. Dalloway throws a party, creating a small web of community for an evening. Two lovers exchange hyacinths in The Waste Land. The voice that emerges from it all seems to be that of the modern Everyman: "I am a man, just like so many others, but I am not completely replaceable. I have an identity and I am here."

References

Elliot, T.S. The Waste Land. Bartleby.com. 1922.

Marx, Karl. "Communist Manifesto." 1848.

Nietzsche, Frederick. Twilight of the Idols. The Portable Nietzsche. Ed. Walter Kaufmann. New York: Penguin Books, 1976.

Sadler, Michael. "Introduction to 'Concerning the Spiritual in Art.'" June 28, 2004

Woolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway. San Diego: Harcourt, Inc., 1925.