20th century Flashcards
(44 cards)
development of cinema
the montage in the cinema represented the main key figure to elevate the level of cinema from a basic recoding to a sophisticated view. Some of the techniques that permitted this elevation were the close up and the wide angle.
films began to represt some logical stories that could be represented under different perspectives (realistic, dreamlike, fantatic). The aim that the characters had to achieve was the identification with the viewer: someone who watched those scenes had to feel represented by the character
holocaust
part of hitler’s plan, called the final solution, was the extermination of jews. they were suddenly arrested and deported to concentration camps, abused and killed (6MLN). the camps were located in auschwitz, birkenau, dachau and other places, ruled by a security organisation called the SS led by heinrich himmler.
after the end of the war a lot of war criinals were tried in nuremberg, but some of them escaped or changed their identities
novel in modernism: content + style
the novel was highly affected by the event of the 1ww, which left a horrified and lost society. The general mood was a sense of emptiness and absence of fixed values, loneliness, abandonment. these feelings were reflected in the themes of novels.
in terms of style, modernist writers broke the ground with some news that almost always overturned victorian conventions. for example the omniscent narrator as a moral and spiritual guide disappeared, in place of a direct or indirect presentation of characters’ thoughts, point of view. the plot was no longer linear, but the conception of time in the novel was completely relative and unchronological
great depression
in the 1920s america saw an economic boom, caused by the advent of consumerism and the consequent increase of jobs (roaring 20s).
this abuse led to overproduction, instability of economy, unequal distribution of wealth. these factors caused the collapse of the wall street stock market in 24th october 1929. this event led to the great depression, characterised by the prograssive reduction of consumerism, enployment and business in general, due to the panic which had been spreading among other working sectors. american farmers were a bit unlucky because they faced a drought
what did emily davidson do to capture the national attention?
she threw herself under the king’s horse at the derby in 1913
modernism
modernism was a movement that involved all the forms of art (music, cinema, literature, visual arts) which appeared in the 1910s but flourished between the 1920s and the 1930s.
during the 1ww the mood that was being spread around the population was fear, lack of a reference point, lack of trust in the state. people’s ideals of identity, patriotism and faith were fading. the artsist is basically a lost, misunderstood and alone individual who cannot find himself in the society he’s living in.
moderninsm gives space to a lot of interpretations to the rapresentation of modern world and humanity’s place on it.
modernits refuse to follow the trasditional aspects of form and style, favouring experimentation. the focus is on how our mind and our unconscious work, with a fragmentory and relative perspective, so the admission of only one truth is rejected
dubliners
dubliners is a collection of shorst stories which all represent the life of ordinary people in dublin. the collection is devided into four parts, which represent different phases of life: childhood, adoloscence, maturity, public life
all of these people are affected by a general paralysis, caused by their tying to tradition
the stories apparently seem written in a traditional way, but the reality is that there are some modern features. som eof them are the focus of characters’ thoughts and inner world, the absence of an externat narrator and the use of symbolism; furthermore, each story is told by one of the characters’ perspective
lawrence
lawrence criticises joyce’s stream of consciousness, because he thinks, similarly too woolf, that its aim is to capture interrelatedness of life.
he’s modern in exploring the unconscious and believes that pure relations can exist, which didn’t include society, social class or conventional morality. his modernist approach is also present in the way he treats sex, which was considered as a taboo in the victorian age
suffragette movement
some women founded the women’s social and political women; its members were called suffragettes.
inter-war years
the inter-war years were a dark and ominious time. the government was represented by liberals and conservatives, but the conservative and traditional perspective was mantained until 1929 by stanley baldwin. The fear of the spread of communism povoked the following of the new fascist parties led by hitler and mussolini, pretending that there was the need of an authoritarian leader.
france and britain had to borrow heavily from america, which ended up with gaining the economic superiority
who were the rivals in the 1ww?
german empire and austro-hungarian empire VS maritime powers of britain and france
mrs dalloway
plot:
the story is set in a day in the life of clarissa dalloway, a 51 years old woman, wife of a politician, in london.
in the morning the leaves the house to buy flowers for the party sh has organised for that night. e capture all the thoughts and changing mood she’s having during the day. for example she meets her old lover peter, who had come back from india. furthermore, she’s disturbed by septimus, an ill man, who fortunately takes his life during the same night. hearing this news, clarissa is happy: she says that as he embraces death, she can at leat fully embrace life.
clarissa’s moods aren’t just seen by her point of view, but also by some of the characters
ulysses
joyce’s ulysses reproduces, imitates and sometimes parodies homer’s epic poem. the structure remains the same, with 18 episodes, but the differences are two: the journeys aren’t physical, but they’re psychological; the protagonist is a modern man, who’s not a hero, but he’s imperfect, so he doesn’t have any extra powers and can’t either count on a divine help. joyce’s choice of reproducing a classical poem has the aim to demonstrate that the problems that were considered significant for a latin man have the same importance now
germany and arise of hitler
meanwhile, in germany adolf hitler had become the leader of the country, in 1919. his party was right-wing, national socialist or nazi.
he quickly rebuilt the army, the navy and the air force.
his conquering behavior aroused the suspition of the league of nations, which mantained a polity of appeasement, in hope of an agreement. this failed with the invasion of czechoslovakia.
in 1939 britain and france declared war on germany
tools of information
new mass communications technology revolutioned the relations between people. information was more accessible, people knew about the outside world. they then could have some discussions about all the events, so there was the creation of a social cohesion and new community.
1984
-reflection of the current politics: horrors of nazism and oppression of stalinist russia
-use of mass media
-new language (newspeak) which distorts and redefine reality (war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength), also bans some words (freedom, equality)
-english=ingsoc
-mass media is used for propaganda and is for the interests of who has the power (television, posters, screens)
-power under the hands of a few
-people put under a constant surveillance
-the aim is to control information and influence public opinion
-england=airstrip one
-3 superstates: oceania, eurasia, eastasia
differences between joyce and woolf
joyce and woolf are the most significat practitioners of the stream of conscoiusness fiction, but they have two different rapresentation of it. broadly talking, joyce’s main interest is capturing possibilities and limitations of the human language; while woolf is focused on the fluidity of identity and the relationship between things and people. in the first’s books the stream of consciousness is adacted to the characters, instead in the second’s there’s only one unique, representing the impersonal force of life
affect of mass culture on intellectuals
the education rreforms of the 1920s caused a general increase in literacy. meanwhile the new mass communication tools gave birth to an official mass culture. it wasn’t well seen by the emerging intellectuals, who thought that was a degeneration of the traditional cultural values. they in fact promoted some avat garde works that could only be understood by a small elite of highly educated people
the dead (story)
the story reunits all the phases of life in just one.
this story may seem realistic because of the detailed descriptions of the characters, but at the end every feature is pre organised and symbolic (names ecc)
gabriel is a very full of himself man, in fact he considers the dinner’s guests intellectally inferior and their conversation is not worth it. fotunately at the end of the story gabriel questions his own life, too
the epiphany of gretta is the highest moment of tension in the whole story, but in terms of time, it last just for a moment (gretta was on the stairs and she stopped just when she listened to a song of her past): the importance of an event doesn’t depend on the real duration of it, but instead on the affect that event has on the characters
finnegans wake
joyce gives space to all his creativity in this book, experimenting a lot of aspects. for example he mixes different languages together, so it’s a polylinguestic novel (greek, latin, italian, german, french)… language is the main character (es crossmass parzle is the combination of christmas parcel and crossword puzzle). we can also see some religious and profane resonances.
he gives the reader the freedom to read the book how he prefers
new genres of fiction
modern novel went against the traditional spirit of english novel. perhaps a lot of new categories of fiction were invented, which constributed to the realisation of contemporary fiction.
black humor as a tool for representing the collapse of the vistorian social order in evelyn waugh’s book, science fiction, detective fiction with arthur conan doyle,..
henri bergson - time
the thinker henri bergson went online with the new perceptions typical of modernism, such ad the refuse of tradition. He thinks that time isn’t linear and either cannot be devided in units, simply because it is a flow, a duration (just like a melody can’t consist in a succession of distinguished notes), so the element of separation doesn’t belong to time. this vision in in contrast to the scientific materialism and positivism
what was the event that caused the beginning of the 1ww?
assassination of the archduke franz ferdinand in sarajevo in 1914 by serbian nationalists
two fronts of 2ww
europe and asia
