Chapter 13
Early 20th-Century Novels
From An Outline of English Literature by
Thornley and Roberts
English Novels of the 20th Century
 Disappearance
of the British Empire (p.144)
 The changes in beliefs and political ideas
were influenced strongly by the events of
the WWI.
 No longer held confidence in British society,
culture and political organization.
E. M. Foster
Takes a completely different view of the
values which formed and governed British
society (p.144)

Howard’s End (1910)
1. Show the different beliefs of two
families – the Wilcoxes (who are good at
making money and are connected only with
everyday things they can see and touch) and
the Schlegel sisters (concerned with deeper,
spiritual and cultural values)
2. Theme: to connect the everyday outer
life of the Wilcoxes with the inner life
of the heart and spirit


A Passage to India (1924)
1.
How English governed India,
the same sort of people as
the Wilcoxes in Howard’s
End, busy with traditional
ways of behaving and the
apperance of things and
pepole, unable to see the
inner truth of events.
Theme: bring together
opposites
Failures in terms of money
and worldly importance may
in fact be successful.
2.
3.
D. H. Lawrence
 As
a novelist, his job is to show how an
individual’s view of his own personality was
often affected by conventions of language,
family and religion (p.146)
 Relationship between people are changing and
moving
 Took the form of the traditional novel and
made it wider and deeper
D. H. Lawrence

1.
2.
3.
4.
Sons and Lovers (1913) – p.147
Taken from his early life
Paul Morel and his relationship with his mother
He needs her mother to help him make sense of the world
around him, but in order to become an independent man/artist,
he has to struggle to become free from her influence.
Struggle to put the outer and inner world together in a true
relation

The Rainbow (1915) – a family through three couples of
different ages

Women In Love (1916) – two sisters trying to understand the
true meaning of love and to work towards a real closeness of
souls
James Joyce



1.
2.
Born and educated in Ireland (p.148)
Dubliners (1914) -- a collection of short stories,
“The Dead”
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916)
presents Joyce himself as a young man in the
character of Stephen Dedalus
Shows how he gradually frees himself from the
influence of two strong forces, political and
religious feelings to follow his own nature and his
own fate
James Joyce

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Ulysses (1922) – p.149
Created a new style of writing, has no real plot
Allows the readers to move inside the minds of the
characters, and presents their thoughts and feelings
in a continuous stream
Breaking the usual rules of description, speech and
punctuation
“Interior Monologue” or “Stream of Consciousness”
A powerful influence on the work of many other
writers
James Joyce

1.
2.
3.
Finnegan’s Wake (1939)
Creates another new type of language
Mixed up sentences and words
Uses of references to ancient stories to
express themes of (1) the nature of creation
of the artist and of God (2) the humor and
tragedy of human life
Virginia Woolf


1.
2.
Attempts to explore the
consciousness of her characters (p.150)
To the Lighthouse (1927)
Mr. Ramsay – represents the truth of facts
that can be proved
Mrs. Ramsay – represents an attempt to find
the truth that lies below the facts
Virginia Woolf

Orlando (1928) -- Presents a character who begins
as a man in the 16th century and ends as a woman
in 1928 (p.151)

The Waves (1931) – takes six characters at different
points of their lives and show how each is affected
by the death of a person

Critical studies on literature and other subjects
George Orwell



1.
2.
3.
Conscious of the ways in which language could be
used to hide the truth (p.157)
Governments can use language to deceive the people
1984 (1949)
Describes a future world where every word and
action is seen and controlled by the state
Changing the language so the only words left are
those for objects and ideas that the government wants
the people to know about
This picture of the future was influenced by the
hardships and political events of the WWII
George Orwell