Woolf and Mcewan: How the Modern Became Postmodern

Ian McEwans At geniusment draws inspiration from and alludes to a coarse number of 20th century modernist agents and works, both rhetoricalally and thematically. For a legend to be considered a successful culmination to the reading of a great(p) body of works, however, it must not be content with unless emit the themes, modal values, and forms of the past. preferably, it must extend them, add to them creatively, and attempt to pull them into contemporary readership.While his thematic and stylistic allusions to 20th century greats such(prenominal) as Virginia Woolf immortalize his capable knowledge of and debt to 20th century modernist writing, it is McEwans ability to transform these stylistic and thematic elements and mold them into a postmodern classic that makes gratification a much than decorous culmination to the readings of a 20th century British Literature course. Stylistically, McEwan draws around heavily from the works of Virginia Woolf for the opening portion o f atonement.The averse pace of the opening, allowing for the painstakingly detailed description of nearly all(prenominal) scene, in addition to the tryout of the psychological motives of multiple main reference works, closely mirrors the style of Virginia Woolf, which she incorporates into the majority of her works. To quote a characteristically slow paced, though psychologically enriched, passage from the opening of Woolfs Between the Acts, Mrs. Manresa bubbled up, enjoying her own capacity to surmount, without play a hair, this minor social crisisthis laying on of two more plates.For had she not complete faith in flesh and blood? and arent we all flesh and blood? and how silly to make bones of trifles when were all flesh and blood under the skin (Woolf 39). The passage, to one strange with the stylistically innovative style of Woolf, seems to meander under the weight of an besides descriptive report and, more prominently, under the psychological musings of a character tha t, until a few pages previous, was nonexistent to the reader. The majority of Between the Acts contains passages of a analogous style, of which this is only one randomly chosen example.As is true of numerous of the passages that fecal matter be found in any Woolfian novel, advancing the story follow is secondary to fleshing out the motives, thoughts, and feelings of the characters. With the plot safely set behind in-depth psychological examination in rank of importance, Woolf is free to experiment with a stream-of-consciousness style narrative in which psychological elements of the story feature more prominently than corporeal elements. In addition to the stream-of-consciousness for which she is well know, there are other characteristics unwashed to much of Woolfs work.For example, she has the tendency to describe a scene, more oftentimes than not, a natural scene, in painstaking detail, reluctant to add follow up that would too quickly further the narrative. Another passage from Between the Acts provides and adequate example of this, reading, Here came the sunan illimitable rapture of joy, embracing every flower, every leaf. Then in compassion it withdrew, covering its face, as if it forebore to gestate on human suffering. There was a fecklessness, a lack of counterpoise and order in the clouds as they thinned and thicked.Was it their police, or no law they obeyed? (Woolf 23). This description of nature essentially is of no consequence to the narrative as yet the in full passage describing the weather proceeds for almost a full page. The flowing, riddanceally detailed descriptions coinciding with an apparently lacking story line and an in-depth psychological view that the reader is privy to as a emergence of the stream-of-consciousness style, are all aspects of Woolfian literature that McEwan attempts to draw from and mold to his own postmodern designs.While McEwan draws inspiration from Woolf in a way that would be just as simple for an auth or of less talent to do, his aims are far deeper arrive at than an author who simply wishes to garner a comparison to Virginia Woolf. McEwan does borrow preferably clearly from the stylings of Woolf, even commenting it upon it himself, writing, we wondered if it owed a little too much to the techniques of Mrs. Woolf (McEwan 294). Rather than be content with plainly keeping her modernist conventions intact, however, he completely alters their inwardness within the context of his own novel.In the opening portions of Atonement, for example, McEwan, in quite a interchangeable way as Woolf, attempts to gain entry to the psychological depths of his characters. With the exception of a few broad passages required to move the story advancing through dialogue or action, the majority of the opening is devoted to the home(a) monologues of the characters and an examination of their needs, desires, and feelings. This is clearly de delightfuld in the earliest pages as the ovel provides pass ages such as, She wanted to leave, she wanted to lie alone, facedown on her bed and savor the unintellectual piquancy of the moment, and go back down the lines of branching consequence to the psyche before the destruction began (McEwan 14). This passage, one of many in a similar style end-to-end Atonement, attempts, in a stream-of-consciousness in the classic Woolfian star, to image the inner psyche of the character rather than force any diverseness physical, tangible action to occur. In this way, the storys narrative may seem slow paced while the characters motives become more well known to the reader.This borrowing stylistically from Woolf is not necessarily important or groundbreaking, and is sure as shooting no deciding eventor in whether this novel should be viewed as a classic in coming decades. There have been many authors who have devoted the entirety of their works to the stream-of-consciousness fiction that Woolf helped to pioneer. As mentioned above, what makes M cEwan an author deserving of longevity in his works is that the allusions are not merely presented, scarcely are completely altered from their original meaning by the context of Atonement.He takes deeply alluded to modernist conventions and makes them Brionys primary source of inspiration, seen most clearly when she ponders the new school of authors and realizes, She no longer really believed in characters. They were quaint devices that belonged to the nineteenth centuryPlots too were like rusted machinery whose wheels would no longer turnIt was thought, perception, and sensations that interested he, the conscious mind and how to represent its off roll (McEwan 265).There is a certain depth and complexity in the fact that McEwan represents these modernist conventions not as his own, but as those of a thirteen grade old girl, the central character of his metanarrative. What McEwan does next with these modernist principles of writing is attempt to show that they too are vestiges of the past, doomed to fall in the face of a more ethical and moral fiction. Just as Briony rejects the realism of the authors of the nineteenth century, McEwan is rejecting the modernism of the 20th century in favor of a postmodernism.One of Brionys internal monologues to which the reader is privy, begins, The interminable pages about gently and stone and water, a narrative split between three points of view, the hovering stoicism of nothing much seeming to happennone of this could conceal her cowardice (McEwan 302). These characteristics, all of which have been shown to influence Woolfian literature, have all failed Brionys attempt to hide what she knows she has done.The monologue continues in a similar vena with, Did she really think she could hide behind whatever borrowed notions of modern writing, and overmaster her sin in a streamthree streams of consciousness? (McEwan 302). Her guilt and the moral and ethical implications of what she has done cannot be fixed through some o utdated ideas of modernist fiction, which has no ethical consequences. There are allusions from dozens of modernists authors sprinkled throughout the length of Atonement. Unfortunately, the scope of this paper can give only one of the most prominent.In a similar fashion as with the Woolf example, however, McEwan nearly unendingly thoughtfully engages the text to which he is alluding, but is not content to merely allow these allusions to sit idly in the novel with no sense of purpose. Rather, each of his numerous allusions has some greater purpose in Atonement as McEwan artfully transforms them into something that fits the overall scope of what he attempts to accomplish. Still, the question form whether or not this book is an adequate culmination of all the readings in a 20th century British literature course.The fact that Atonement not only draws from modernist writers, many of whom are the focus of the aforementioned course, but attempts to extend them creatively and transform th em from the 20th century modern to the twenty-first century postmodern makes Atonement an excellent novel and a fine culmination of a semester of 20th century British literature. Works Cited McEwan, Ian. Atonement. in the raw York Anchor Books, 2001. Woolf, Virginia. Between the Acts. New York Harcourt, 2001.